


Onward to the Fault

by Aoidos



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Suicide, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoidos/pseuds/Aoidos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is an Omega getting on in years, and he thinks he wants children, but Eames is literally the worst Alpha in the universe to choose as a mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone. I’ve been creepily lurking in the fandom for about a year now, and as usual, I’m extremely late to the party. Having said that, I’m a diehard A/E fan and this premise has been formulating in my head for quite a while so I finally decided to type it out.
> 
> Turns out, it might have been a tad ambitious. I’ve written around 5,000 words so far, and this is the first part. Overall, I envision it being around 10,000 words. I’ve never tackled A/B/O before, so please, please, please pardon any dynamics I’ve butchered.
> 
> This fic also includes an original character, Julian, who in this evening’s performance is played by Idris Elba because, let’s be real, he’s smoking hot.
> 
> The timeline jumps around a bit, but I’ve tried to demarcate with dividers so it shouldn’t be too confusing. Use Ariadne as a cute compass :)
> 
> Note: the "rape/non-con" reference is for a very brief, not-very-graphic flashback of Arthur's time in the military. I wanted to include a warning, though, because I know it can still trigger some people.

For Arthur, loyalty wasn’t a virtue. It was an obstacle to overcome.

If he wasn’t loyal to a person — Dom, the figurative, and in one memorable episode,  _actual_ train wreck — he was loyal to an idea. Once he got it into his head that someone was his friend, they were his to defend no matter what. 

Some might see that quality as a strength, but for Arthur, it meant he went to extraordinary lengths to defend his loved ones’ honor. Say, gallivanting across the globe to clear Dom’s name after beautiful, brilliant, confused Mal jumped. It was when he was crouched in an alleyway in Plzeň, firing off rounds of ammunition at an unhappy client’s surly bodyguard that he thought to himself:  _You’ve got to get yourself sorted._

The thought came…and went. He’d experience little surges of determination, usually when Dom was having one of his manic spells, pacing and muttering to himself too quickly for Arthur to keep up.  _You’ll get yourself sorted later. After all this._

Oftentimes, Arthur’s loyalty confused him. The problem was he got too fixated, he would remind himself repeatedly. An idea wormed its way into his mind and infected him, convincing Arthur that things were real and reciprocated when in fact they were phantoms — fantasies that looked and felt real, but were ultimately ephemeral. Dom loved him, but only to a limit. His love for Arthur ended where the love for his children began. 

Arthur picked up on that too late. It took Dom nearly dropping them all into limbo for him to figure out where he stood. He tried not to take it too personally.

Ordinarily, he could get a handle on the problem in the early stages. If he felt himself growing attached to someone, he’d nip it right in the bud and throw up his emotional walls and treat everyone with the same polite professionalism. He wasn’t frigid, exactly. Arthur could mingle and smile and make conversation with the best of them. When Dom was really on the decline, Arthur had to pick up the slack and network, making connections in the unsavory world of underground dreaming. 

He dropped twenty large on a Zegna suit and allowed his slate gray tie and Berlutis to guide him around, making the impossible real. He wore the fuck out of that suit, and people liked Arthur immediately. He was young — some said too young, but they didn’t know what they were talking about — he was affable, and most importantly, he got the job done at any cost.

The fact that no one knew the real him was besides the point. He wasn’t in the dream business to make friends. Arthur found the work interesting, exciting, and he was making enough money to retire by the age of forty.

Then Dom proposed inception, which Arthur knew, like he knew every screw and wire in the PASIV, was impossible.

But Dom ignored Arthur’s objections as he usually did and left Arthur to train young Ariadne. Lying there, with her dark hair framing her fair face, her red lips slightly parted as she breathed deeply, the stupid thought popped into his head that she looked like Snow White. Arthur sat upon the lawn chair beside her and rolled up his sleeve, preparing his arm for the needle when he paused to watch her. She had approached the whole business of inception with such naive, wide-eyed wonder that Arthur envied her. He remembered those days of breathless excitement where anything in dreamshare seemed possible. After all, anything  _should_ be possible in dreams.

Of course, then you had to wake up and deal with the concrete limitations of life. He inhaled deeply and the corner of his lips curled when he smelled her vanilla body spray, and beneath that, the unmistakeable scent:  _Beta._ Feeling himself grow maudlin, Arthur inserted the needle, laid down, and reached over to hit the button on the PASIV. The world fell away.

Arthur was in no rush to wake. Before he’d left, Dom had told him he was going to fetch Eames, and Arthur in his passive-aggressive way tried to give him a million other options than _that_ one. 

“There are plenty of good thieves,” he objected weakly, at least to his own ears. But Dom was gone.

 

***

 

In the early days, he and Dom had caused a bit of scandalous hysteria within the dreamshare community. You’d think a bunch of internationally wanted criminals would have better things to talk about, but the bunch of gossips were  _obsessed_ with an unmated Omega pointman chasing a widowed Alpha across the globe. 

_Cobb bagged himself another Omega already. Lucky bastard._

_Arthur is still with Dom? Bitch must be in heat 24/7._

But it wasn’t like that with him and Dom. The extractor seemed completely immune to normal human impulses, and that included looking twice at a virile young Omega pathetically chasing at his heels. Frankly, Arthur was grateful for the reprieve. His whole life, he’d either been fending off unwanted advances from Alphas or misunderstanding his place on the social food chain, which put him in several uncomfortable positions, but quickly taught him the price of diving into unknown situations head first.

 

***

 

When he was young and stupid and unspeakably horny he’d kissed an Alpha serving with him in his Army unit behind a utility shed. That earned him a fat lip. Touching his bleeding mouth gingerly and muttering an apology, he’d wondered how he’d possibly misinterpreted the situation until the Alpha pressed against his shoulders.  _Oh_ , Arthur thought dimly as he knelt in the dirt.  _Okay then._

***

 

He refused to feel badly about the past, but sometimes those memories washed over him like a tsunami.  _Typical overemotional Omega_ , he could hear the same taunts that haunted him his whole professional life.  _Omegas can’t serve in the Army. Omegas make terrible pointmen._ He’d proven them all wrong. As long as he took his suppressor, he could function relatively normally, though they sometimes reacted negatively with his system. Suppressors were only meant to be used occasionally, for a periodic inconvenient heat, but Arthur had been using them steadily since he was a teenager, and now he was in his thirties.

He was kneeling by a toilet, the one with the cracked base in Dom and Mal’s first apartment in Paris, and Mal was there stroking his hair gently, muttering “mon amour” over and over.

“You have to stop this,” she whispered as Arthur struggled to a seated position and leaned against the bathtub with the claw feet.

“I’m fine,” he lied, wishing his voice hadn’t cracked.

Mal made a sound with her tongue that clearly indicated she didn’t believe him. She was crouched beside him, wearing faded jeans and a pink angora sweater that she somehow made look unbearably chic. 

“Really, I’m fine,” he repeated, blinking rapidly and trying to look respectable after vomiting for fifteen minutes straight.

Mal was quiet for a long time and Arthur busied himself with smoothing out his sweatervest, trying to remember if he’d made the copies of the paperwork Dom had handed him that morning—

“My father pressured me to mate, and I wanted to work, so I understand Arthur, my love. I do…” Mal began and Arthur immediately held up his hand. They’d been down this road too many times. He gripped the side of the tub and stood up. Mal watched him helplessly, still crouched on the floor.

“I don’t  _want_ to mate, Mal. That’s the difference. You met Dom. Things changed for you.”

“I know what it’s like to crave freedom and independence.” Now she was standing and gazing up at him, “But I see you fading.”

Arthur let her touch his face, her warm fingertips and then her palms cradling his face.

“I’m fine,” he lied again.

Anyway, it hadn’t mattered. Mal had been mad the whole time, stupid and irresponsible and totally out of her head. He repeated that to himself until he wasn’t so blindingly, cripplingly devastated. He desecrated her memory until he didn’t feel alone and abandoned. He’d still sing her praises if anyone asked.  _She was lovely. Brilliant. Gorgeous_ , but in his head, he cursed her for leaving him — the one person who really knew him — and left him to fix everything. It was easier afterwards to hate her the first time she appeared in Dom’s dream and ran him through with a sword.

_Oh fine. So it’s like that._

He wondered if Dom blamed him for Mal’s death. She always said Arthur knew her better than she knew herself, but even he failed to see it coming.

 

***

 

Currently, he was safe within his own dream, watching Ariadne build, instructing her to go easy — nothing too big, nothing too flashy — nothing that would set off his projections. She smiled, careless and clueless about what it feels like to be torn apart by human hands. With a wave of her arm, she threw up another spire.

 

***

 

The whole problem had been Mal and him, he decided. They _did_ know each other too well. She’d taken one look at him, a lieutenant at 18-years-old — normally unheard of, especially for an Omega — and saw through the accommodations and the profile in the  _New York Times_ , for fuck’s sake, and known he was a fraud. He felt eight-years-old again, hiding under his bed when his father came to collect him to go sign up at the National Omega Registry. 

Arthur remembered his father on his hands and knees, peering under the duvet.

“Kiddo, it’s fine. Everyone has to do this.”

He’d been inexplicably terrified.

Mal took one look at him, standing there with his shorn hair and crisp uniform and smiled her deadly little smile at him.

“Do you like dreaming, Lieutenant Levine?”

Well, who in their right mind would have said no?

Mal was from the Dream Institute of America, a private company that was contracted by the U.S. military to explore the possibility of militarizing dreamshare. At the time, no soldier had successfully stabilized a dream, let alone explored the weaponization process, so they started with basic construction and advanced to cityscapes. 

As it turned out, Arthur was very, very good at dreaming. They built Bucharest with its post-Communism modern lines and the lavish cathedrals and monuments of Paris and Hong Kong’s wonderfully logical Functionalism. Arthur built his little bumfuck hometown in Kansas with the unpaved roads and Mal took him to Avenue Montaigne and the streets of Saint-Germain and put him in suits in cuts and colors he’d never imagined. Mal taught him how to walk, think, and act like a gentleman all in her own mind, but it stuck with him when he woke up.

Maybe he and Mal weren’t the problem. Maybe the problem was waking up.

That happened one time and he found some asshole smirking down at him. 

“What’s this?” the man purred in some watered-down, foreign accent.

Arthur scowled as Mal withdrew the line from her arm, and beamed at the stranger, who Arthur could see now was in SAS uniform, a Colonel from the looks of it.  _Impressive_. He was young to be so high-ranking. Probably another prodigy. Arthur smirked.  _Join the fucking club, buddy._

“Lieutenant Levine. This is Colonel Eames. He’ll be joining us on the project.” 

“ _Lieutenant_?” Eames declared, eyebrows raised, his plump licks ticking up into a smirk. “Are they handing our promotions in nursery schools these days?”

Arthur hated him immediately. These fly boys were all the same: slapdash and cocky and they were born to fuck up the careful lines of Arthur’s world. Plus, they were almost all Alphas. Eames was no exception. He could smell the telltale earthy musk peaking out from the spiced cologne the colonel dabbed at his throat.

He swung his legs off the chair and stood up, rolling his sleeve down.

“Just try to keep up,” he spat, ignoring the way Eames positively glowed in response. Mal moved across the room, smiling to herself for some reason as she gathered some supplies. Preoccupied, Arthur missed it when the Colonel moved closer to him, and he froze when he felt the Alpha’s chest press against his shoulder. The Omega part of his brain took over, telling him not to move, not to startle the stronger creature with any sudden motions.

“You’re lovely, aren’t you?” Eames asked, his voice pitched low, too low for Mal to hear, he hoped. He couldn’t move, couldn’t lift his eyes from where they were lowered, to the PASIV lined clutched in his hand.

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, Eames was gone, following Mal across the room. Arthur could breathe again, and he did, taking huge gulps of air into his lungs, trying to remain quiet and not cause a scene. This is what he  _hated_  about being an Omega. Arthur’s whole existence was built on the incorrect assumption that he could maintain control all the time. But Eames had just proven that was all a lie. He spun on his heels to glare accusingly at the Alpha, who was now chatting casually with Mal as if he hadn’t just, in essence, lifted his leg and pissed all over Arthur to mark his territory.

Eames cast a glance his way and smirked.

 _Fucker_. Classic Alpha. This was all a game to him. Arthur was just another Omega to rile up. Mal claimed Arthur had just had bad experiences and not all Alphas were so cruel.

“Oh, my Arthur,” she sighed in that way Arthur  _hated_ because it meant she was feeling sorry for him. He cringed a bit when she took his hand. “One day, you will meet an Alpha who makes you feel safe and loved and  _perfect.”_

Of course, she thought that because she’d just met this young, handsome  _American_ architect named Dominic Cobb. It was difficult not to fall in love with Dom because he was supremely confident, and had a firm handshake, and  _really_ listened to others’ ideas. Back then, he was kind, funny (in a nerdy way), and he was nice to Arthur. So Arthur caved and decided to love Dom because Mal made a very, very good case that he should.

He really needed to stop trusting people.

 

***

 

Ariadne was doing something to the cathedral she had just built, twisting it some unnatural way.

“Stop that,” he ordered and she turned to him, startled and then annoyed.

“Why? It’s a dream, right? I should be able to-“

“I’ll know it’s a dream. Look…” he nodded and Ariadne look down the hill they were standing on to the park full of Arthur’s projections, every single one currently staring up at them.

“Oh…that’s…creepy,” she said slowly.

Arthur grinned and was about to say,  _If you think that’s creepy, try being slaughtered by your best friend’s dead wife_ , but that was the moment his projection of Eames stalked up the side of the hill, clutching a short blade, and slashed Ariadne’s throat.

She awoke gasping and Arthur was at her side in an instant, gripping her hand, speaking to her in a soothing voice.

“What the hell, Arthur?” she whispered, eyeing him warily.

“Sorry,” he replied, feeling like an asshole. It wasn’t her fault he and Eames had some…unresolved issues.

 

***

 

Arthur desperately wanted to be one of those careless young men who could fool around with multiple partners just because it felt good and he was young and experiencing his first real heats. It was old-fashioned to think he would mate the first Alpha who bedded him, and anyway, this was the age of enlightenment. Congress even passed a law saying Omegas couldn’t be discriminated against in the workplace.

He was a disgrace to Omegas everywhere if he  _didn’t_ fuck Colonel Eames, really.

That’s what he told himself as he sat upon the edge of Mal’s desk with Eames’s wide trunk between his thighs, ankles crossed behind him, as they kissed slow and wet. He aimed for projecting confidence and experience even as the Colonel’s skilled fingers gripped the back of his shirt, pulling it up just high enough to run his fingertips along the small of his back. Arthur desperately hoped he wouldn’t come in his pants.

 

***

 

They’d been inside Mal’s dream earlier when Eames shifted forms. Arthur had never seen anything like it, and it must have shown on his face because Eames wasn’t even a smug asshole about it. When he changed back, he looked genuinely pleased Arthur finally expressed respect for him.

“Can you become anyone?”

“Just about…”

“Do me,” Arthur said, and Eames hadn’t lowered himself to sexual puns. He simply shifted into Arthur’s shape with the same amount of energy it takes to slip into a coat.

When he was Eames again, they looked at each other for a long time.

“I think…I get your eyes wrong. Slightly,” Eames said eventually.

Arthur’s throat felt dry.

Mal cleared her throat. “Time is almost up.”

 

***

 

It started, like everything else with them, as a pissing contest. Eames kept touching him in little ways: cupping his elbow as he leaned over his desk, grazing his palm against the small of his back as he stepped past him in the hallway, breathing directly onto the back of his neck as he stood behind him to examine Mal’s models. Arthur had tried to flirt back in his clipped, frosty way, but quickly discovered he couldn’t out-flirt the master.

He upped the ante the only way he knew how — by not taking his suppressor medication.

The next  time he walked into their makeshift lab at the base, Eames was seated at his desk, but his head snapped up when Arthur walked by. His hand shot out, grabbed his wrist, and he was out of his chair so fast, he nearly knocked it backwards.

“Are you out of your bloody mind?” he growled, his eyes flashing so fiercely Arthur forgot how to breathe.

“What?” he asked, trying for innocent and probably missing by a mile, judging by Eames’s expression.

“I smelled you from the parking lot,” he rasped, immediately bending down to bury his nose against the crook of Arthur’s neck.

“Oh, that,” Arthur gasped, his hand coming up to push at the forger’s chest.

It escalated from there.

“Lock the door,” Eames ordered and Arthur obeyed. 

Now, Arthur realized he was slowly grinding his hips against Eames when he heard the man gasp against his neck. He felt the alpha’s cock hardening against his thigh.

“Fuck… _darling..”_

Arthur pulled back suddenly and stared at him.

“I…what?”

Eames furrowed his brow. “Sorry?” His lips were red from Arthur kissing and biting them. He scrambled to unfasten Arthur’s pants and shoved his hand inside and under, groping until he could fondle between his legs. Arthur writhed before him.

“What did you say?” he managed to croak.

“…Can’t believe you walked around like this. Any Alpha could have smelled you.  _Fuck_ , you’re wet.”

Arthur grabbed his chin to look at him.

“What did you say  _before_?”

Eames stared at him before he seemed to understand. 

“Darling?”

Arthur yanked him down and shoved his tongue back into his mouth.

Later, Arthur would remember thinking Mal had been right. With Eames, everything felt effortless, even the way they fit together in bed, his wet heat opening for Eames who bucked between his legs like he was born to be right there. For once, Arthur let the Omega part of his mind take over, finally relenting to the mantra:  _submit, submit, submit_. This was his Alpha. His Alpha would take care of him.

“That’s it. I’ve got you, darling,” Eames panted in his rich baritone.

And Arthur believed him because he was a stupid little fool. At least they hadn’t knotted. Even Eames wouldn’t be that cruel.

He never again wanted to feel as pathetic as he felt the next night, when he showed up at Eames’s hotel room, and the forger answered the door dressed in something horrible and paisley that his broad shoulders managed to pull off.

“Going out?” Arthur asked dumbly, not knowing how else to lead into things.

“Arthur,” Eames said, clearly surprised because, right, why would Arthur be at his hotel room at ten o’clock at night? “Uh, yes. I am. Thought I’d hit the tables,” he said, smiling saucily, referring to the casino down the road. One of the perks of being stationed in Las Vegas.

“Want some company?” he asked because Arthur has never understood his limits.

“Oh, darling…” Eames began, and Arthur hated the word this time because it sounded like Eames  _pitied_ him or something. “I don’t think it’s a good idea if we…take this further.”

Arthur wanted to disappear. 

“No, I meant…I’ve been meaning to check out the casino.” 

Arthur never understood why he bothered to lie to a man who trades in lies. Eames simply raised his brows, indicating that was a falsehood and they both knew it. 

Eames hummed. 

“Be that as it may, I don’t think it’s a good idea, and I’m sure Mal would agree.”

Now, Arthur was pissed off.  _That didn’t stop you from fucking me_ , he wanted to say, but refused to sacrifice his last thread of dignity. 

“Fine. Whatever. Have a good night,” he muttered, stalking off quickly. For years after that moment, he’d fantasize about all the terrible things he should have said instead.

 

***

 

Ariadne, bless her, seemed to work things out for herself after she met Eames. Initially, Arthur was grateful he wouldn’t need to share the messier details.  _I forgot to guard my cherry from crafty Brits._ But then a horrifying thought crossed his mind. Maybe the reason Ariadne didn’t need to ask is because it was so fucking  _obvious._

Arthur felt like he was playing a part whenever he was around Eames. He reminded himself not to stare too long, not to rise to the bait when the forger taunted him.  _Be polite and passive. Not too passive, though. Professional. Courteous._

Obviously, that had all been done in vain.

Ariadne took one look at Eames and his infuriating rugged expat wardrobe and swagger and sympathetically patted his arm. It was like Mal had been reincarnated in a tiny American.

Arthur wanted to run out the door screaming. Instead, he buckled down and kept researching Robert Fischer. 

 

***

 

Before Mal died and after she’d had James, Arthur had visited their new home in California. Mal had been too tired to cook by the time he arrived, so they’d ordered Chinese takeout and then sat on the porch swing out back, while Dom heroically attempted to feed two babies by himself. Shortly, he’d open the back door and ask for backup, so Mal seemed to understand she had to meddle in Arthur’s life quickly before time ran out.

“Your business is so ugly. It’s ageing you,” she sighed, touching his temple where a few grey hairs had appeared. Nothing alarming, just a gentle reminder he wasn’t eighteen anymore.

“Oh, so it’s  _my_ business now, is it?” he asked, smiling wryly.

“Yes, well…” Mal tisked, but she was smiling. As quickly as her lips curved upward, the expression vanished and she sighed, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. “My Arthur, don’t you want to have a family of your own?”

“You’re my family.”

She smiled sincerely then and took his hand between hers, rotating his wrist so she could rub at his palm.

“Of course. Always, my love, but don’t you want children of your own?”

For some reason, it didn’t bother him when Mal asked. He’d had to nearly stop talking to his own parents for a while when they wouldn’t stop pestering and reminding him of embarrassing things like biological clocks and heat cycles. Arthur felt like he had a giant time bomb hovering above his head, the timer ticking down ever closer to zero and loneliness and death.

Worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about Eames. Something had changed after they spent the night together. Some cruel little thought stuck in Arthur’s brain and the idea spread like a virus: Eames was his mate. He loved Eames. Arthur couldn’t understand why it had happened. He had Omega friends who went to underground dens during their heats and paid Alphas to fuck them, and  _they_ didn’t fall head over heels for some random penis.

But Arthur didn’t do things in half measures. He was the best pointman in the world, a fiercely loyal friend, and he loved Eames so much it was hard to breathe if he thought about it too carefully.

“Sure. One day,” he said simply, turning his hand to grasp her fingers and squeeze them gently.

 

***

 

If he was to be totally honest, the thought crossed his mind more these days. Every once in a while, he’d notice a Omega chemist or an Alpha architect wasn’t making the rounds in teams anymore, and so he’d ask a colleague where they’d gone, and the story was always the same.  _John met his mate. Hannah found her Omega._

The whole word seemed to be pairing off and Arthur was still alone. A thirty-year-old unmated Omega. It was virtually unheard of. Arthur feared for his bubbe’s health any time she had to explain his status at a family dinner.  _Artie will meet someone one day. Look at this face!_

His only solace was there wasn’t much time to feel sorry for himself when he was being a badass motherfucker. Inception, totally unsurprisingly, turned out to be a very difficult job. Arthur knew that would be the case, and yet he pursued the goal with the same singular focus he brought to every aspect of his life. When Dom informed them he’d lied and there was a very real possibility they could all fall into limbo, Arthur wasn’t remotely surprised. He didn’t even feel hurt. The analytical part of his brain filed that information away under, “Where I stand with Dom.” 

He kept plowing forth, mowing down any projection in his path and fighting in zero gravity all because Eames had said this was possible —  _Inception_ was possible — if he could just keep going. If he could just get the job done.

Arthur remembered Mal stroking his hair and holding his hand as they sat together on the porch and thought  _I can do this. I can get Dom home._

If he wasn’t ever going to have a family of his own, he could at least make sure Dom returned to his.

The really crazy part was it worked. Eames, the bastard, had been right. Inception was possible.

After Dom walked out of the airport, Arthur picked up his luggage and walked for the exit. He spotted Eames leaning on a bag cart and nodded at him, rolling his eyes when Eames offered a mock salute.  _Asshole._

 

***

 

Dom returned to a relatively normal life of teaching and being a father, and Arthur continued his role as pointman to whatever team could afford him. He filled this role initially with a degree of hesitancy, but as it turned out, spending years at Dom’s side had prepared him for pretty much any obstacle. 

His thirty-first birthday came and went — Ariadne and Dom both sent cards — and Arthur celebrated by getting spectacularly drunk and letting a decent-looking Alpha feel him up in a booth at the back of a bar.

He absolutely did  _not_ think of Eames before passing out in his apartment.

For the time being, home was in New York, and Arthur was able to fix up his apartment a bit when an unusual dry spell fell upon the dreamshare community.

“Dunno what’s up,” Akio, an extractor, confessed when Arthur rang him in search of work. “Maybe it’s over, man. Maybe everyone is going legal.”

Arthur thanked him, hung up, and returned to fixing his sink so the faucet would stop leaking and keeping him awake into the early hours.

Things got so dire after three weeks, he called Dom.

“All my contacts are probably outdated by now,” Dom said over the noise of Phillipa tormenting her brother. “Phillipa, put that down. Honey, please. Here. Okay,  _share_ with James.”

Arthur smiled, the phone tucked between his chin and his shoulder as he pulled a book off the shelf and placed it on a lower tier, where it belonged alphabetically.  _Faulkner before Frost._

Dom’s attention returned eventually.

“I’m not going to be much help, I’m afraid.”

Arthur knew he was desperate when the next question poured out of his mouth.

“What about Eames?”

A conspicuous silence followed. Arthur felt uneasy and rested his palm against the bookcase. He was just about to check his phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped when Dom spoke.

“Arthur…” Dom spoke slowly and at once Arthur felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He recognized that tone. Everyone who worried about him used it, but Dom had never used it because Dom trusted him to get his shit together and get the job done. The fact that he was using it now meant that they were about to have a serious, unpleasant conversation. 

“I just thought because he always had good contacts,” Arthur tried, in vain, to steer the conversation back to safe, familiar territory.

Dom respected Eames as a forger, but he had never approved of Arthur’s crush. Initially, Arthur assumed Dom was oblivious to them as he was clueless to almost everything except dreamshare. Hell, he hadn’t known Mal was after him until she had her tongue down his throat. Highly unusual for an Alpha to be that passive, but that was Dom. He shattered all kinds of expectations.

But there were little tells. Arthur and Eames would be bickering about something, and Arthur would glance Dom’s way and see him roll his eyes. Then, there was the time they got shitfaced in a bar after a particularly frustrating brainstorming session in the lead up to Inception and Dom had  _literally_ started a conversation by saying, “Eames is too old to be a mate. Bet his sperm count is low.”

Arthur had chalked it up to typical Alpha protectiveness. Just because Dom wasn’t interested in him sexually didn’t mean he’d let any old Alpha walk up to Arthur and mount him. Now, on the phone with Dom, it seemed to be much more serious. Dom’s tone indicated he’d carefully prepared for this moment.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” he asked, completely throwing Arthur off his defensive game plan.

“Uh…no. Not…no one serious. Why?”

“Do you remember Julian?”

Julian was another forger they’d worked with a couple times when Mal was alive. He was a nice guy, capable — no where near as gifted as Eames, but few were. He got the job done in an efficient way, which Arthur always appreciated.

“Sure.”

“He, uh…I spoke with him the other day and he was asking about you,” Dom said, sounding completely out of his element. Arthur hesitated, unsure of how to continue. Why was Dom offering this information? Did Julian have good contacts?

“O…kay….” he drawled.

Dom sighed in a way that meant he was frustrated with how dense Arthur was being. He rarely heard that sound, but hearing it now instantly raised his hackles. He wanted to say, _Well, here’s a thought, stop being fucking obtuse._ But Dom beat him to the chase.

“Arthur, for God’s sake, he’s interested in you.”

“To run point?”

Arthur thought Dom dropped the phone, but maybe he just banged it against something.

“No. No, not to run point, Arthur,” Dom said, still sighing and sounding generally miserable. “He’s interested…he’d like to ask you out, I think.”

“What?” Arthur responded intelligently, feeling genuinely blindsided. He thought back to the times he’d worked with Julian. The man was an Alpha, that much was immediately clear from the cut of him to his confident, although not arrogant, swagger. At the time, Arthur had thought he’d exhibited some qualities of a Beta with how well he got along with Dom and listened to all of Arthur’s ideas. He would have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t noticed the way his exquisite Burberry dress shirt stretched across his muscular back when he bent down to point out something in one of Arthur’s reports, or the way the light cast shadows across his cheek when he leaned close to the lamp.

Had Julian ever flirted with him? He couldn’t remember. Arthur’s thoughts had always been consumed by Eames. He realized Dom was waiting for a more articulate response.

“What did he say exactly?”

Apparently, that isn’t what Dom wanted to hear.

“What is this, high school?  _Call him_.”

“Wait! No, Dom,  _please_ ,” and, fuck, his tone must have sounded desperate because Dom didn’t hang up on him.

“He said…Well, he  _asked_ if you were still seeing Eames because everyone assumes you two are together,” he said warily.

Arthur’s chest contracted painfully and he sat down on the arm rest of his couch. Of course they did. Because Arthur hadn’t been subtle all these years. He’d been incredibly fucking obviously in love with Eames. He wondered if the forger got together with other Alphas and laughed about the pathetic Omega he fucked one time that won’t leave him alone now.

“What did you say?” Arthur asked, his voice hoarse. This time, Dom didn’t sigh or throw sarcasm his way. His voice was gentle and somehow that was worse.

“I said you weren’t together and he asked me to send you his regards.”

Arthur’s skin felt warm. It was now considered old-fashioned, but during courtships Alphas sometimes used intermediaries to do small things like  _pass along regards_ to test out the waters without being too pushy. Arthur liked that. It was assertive without disrespecting Arthur’s boundaries. He could remember more details of Julian now: his gold cufflinks: nice, not gaudy. Everything tastefully elegant. His smile. His bright eyes.

“I remember him. He’s a good forger,” he said, completely unhelpfully, but he was grateful when Dom hummed his approval. Dom understood that, for Arthur, complimenting someone’s work skills was akin to tearing off his clothes.

“He is. He’s a good man,” Dom responded, and Arthur knew that was the highest kind of praise from Dom. Dom would never,  _ever_ call Eames a good man. A good forger yes, but not a good man.

Arthur’s father passed away when he was serving in the military, so traditionally the next Alpha in his family would take over the responsibility of serving as Arthur’s guardian. Though he was in his thirties, until he was mated, Arthur was required to have a guardian and so instead that role fell upon Dom. Arthur considered it pay back for Inception.  _Nearly drop me into limbo. Now you have to deal with my suitors_ , he thought smugly.

Any arrogance he felt evaporated at Dom’s next statement.

“Mal liked Julian very much,” he said softly.

Arthur heard his breathing hitch slightly. That was true. Mal had always liked Julian very much.  _Elegant,_ she had called him. She was always cooing over his clothing and his ideas. _Brilliant, Julian!_  she cried, throwing her arms around his shoulders and laughing as he twirled her whenever they were reunited.

“Okay,” Arthur recognized his voice and yet his answer surprised him. Dom was clearly surprised too because the other end of the line was silent. In the history of intermediary calls, this had to go down as one of the most awkward exchanges.

“Okay?”

“Tell him he can call me.”

Arthur swore he could feel Dom’s smile through the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and Julian start their courtship and Eames is not happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there was just no way I was going to be able to accomplish everything in two chapters, and I'm honestly not sure I can get it done in three chapters either, so frankly I'm not sure how long it's going to take. But a heads up: parts of this story are going to get very dark, and I'll eventually add additional warnings, but please keep the faith that things will end well. :)
> 
> Glad you guys are enjoying this! I promise there will be more A/E eventually.

His first meeting with Julian was awkward, if he was to put it generously.

 

Rules of society dictated that Arthur's guardian had to accompany the courting Alpha to their first meeting with the Omega, so that's how Dominic Cobb ended up sitting at his kitchen island, squinting at them as they conversed in the living room.

 

When Julian showed up —not with flowers, or wine— but a very good brand of whiskey, Arthur thought _this just might work._

But then they sat down —Julian on the couch and Arthur in an arm chair with the coffee table between them— and the conversation came to a standstill. To his credit, Julian looked as put out by the whole thing as Arthur, seated on the edge of the couch, his hands clasped before him. He was wearing a very handsome burgundy Hugo Boss dress shirt and pressed black slacks. A pair of delicate silver glasses perched on his nose, which Arthur found amusing. Such little glasses on such a large man. They made him look endearingly nerdy.

 

This really wasn't his fault. There was no need to make him suffer.

 

"So…I hear you like going to the shooting range."

 

Start with what you know, right?

 

Arthur swore he could hear Dom sigh from the kitchen. He leaned forward and plucked his glass from the table and brought it to his lips. He'd already drank all the whisky from it, but maybe there was some stuck on the ice cube…

 

Luckily, Julian didn't seem concerned by the forced conversation.

 

"Uh, yeah, I do. I'm rather well-versed in all kinds of small arms," he replied, smiling, his accent posh and cleaner than Eames's. He must be from a good family, educated somewhere prestigious like Oxford maybe.

 

 _Don't think about Eames_ , he scolded.

 

"Really? Me too," he said, inwardly cringing, but Julian wasn't thwarted by Arthur throwing up yet another roadblock in their halting conversation.

 

"I know. Remember that job in Nong Khai? I thought we were done for and then you came out blazing with two Glock 26s — tiny little things," Julian chuckled, holding his hands close together to emphasize his point. "And I thought, he's got to be mucking about, but you were like a bloody sniper with those things."

 

He shook his head, reflecting upon the memory, but he was smiling when he looked back to Arthur.

 

"You leave quite an impression."

 

Arthur's cheeks warmed and he dropped his gaze to his hands, unsure of what to say next. Apparently sensing his distress, Julian skilfully pivoted them away from uncharted territory. He leaned forward to pick up his empty glass and jiggled it a bit.

 

"Mind topping me off?"

 

Arthur quickly stood, deeply grateful for the task, and reached forward for the glass. Their fingers touched and Julian looked at him over the top of his glasses.

 

"Cheers," he said, his voice pitched low, and Arthur tried not to focus on what that did to his stomach as he hurried from the room.

 

"Honestly, it's painful," Dom whispered emphatically to him as they stood at the counter, refilling the glasses with more booze. "I've witnessed interrogations with more warmth."

 

"I'm _trying_ ," Arthur hissed, pouring probably too much whisky into his glass. He already felt lightheaded. Dom took the bottle from his hand and set it aside. He gripped Arthur by the shoulders, turning him so he they could face each other.

 

"Ask him about his family. Show you're interested in him beyond work," Dom whispered.

 

Arthur was really in the weeds here. Rules instructed that the Omega was to cook an elaborate meal for the courting Alpha, but Arthur couldn't cook to save his life, and Dom had said burning down the apartment with Julian inside it probably wasn't the best way to start things off. Arthur had been falling over himself apologizing when Julian first arrived, but the Alpha had merely smiled and said, "I ate earlier. No worries."

 

He really was a kind man, and Arthur couldn't help but notice all the ways he differed from Eames, but then he would notice he was thinking about _Eames_ and not _Julian_ , and he got flustered all over again.

 

Here he had a handsome, generous, brilliant Alpha gently humoring his terrible hosting skills, and he kept thinking of the one who had left him. The Alpha who hadn't wanted him.

 

Furious at himself, Arthur picked up the glasses and determinately marched back into the main room. He was going to make this courtship work even if it killed them both.

 

The rest of the afternoon progressed more smoothly. Arthur did end up asking Julian about his family —parents still alive, still married, one sibling, a sister— and Arthur gave the extremely short version of his own tale: both parents dead, Army, then Dreamshare. No siblings.

 

And he even volunteered to walk Julian down to his car, which Dom seemed to approve of, and permitted Arthur to make the trip alone. When they were standing by Julian's car, a _Mercedes_ , Arthur observed with approval, the Alpha paused with his keys in his hand and turned to look at him.

 

"I've been interested in you for quite a while," he stated plainly, carefully watching Arthur's expression.

 

"You make it sound so clinical," he teased, smiling wide enough so he knew his dimples were on display. Despite what Dom thought, Arthur wasn't totally inept at wooing potential suitors.

 

Julian laughed, his hand rubbing at his jaw where there was a day's worth of stubble. Arthur wondered if it would scratch at his fingertips if he touched it.

 

"Bloody hell. No, sorry. I'm no good at this. What I meant to say is…you're beautiful and I've been interested in you, as a mate, since the day I met you."

 

The honesty of that floored Arthur and he felt light-headed again, this time not from the booze. He was sure his cheeks must have been bright pink because he felt exceedingly warm right then.

 

"I…."

 

Julian leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

 

"You don't have to say anything," he murmured, smiling down at him fondly. "Actually, you do. Say you'll see me again."

 

It wasn't a question and it really didn't need to be.

 

"Um, yeah. Yes. Of course."

 

Arthur was sure he watched Julian unlock his car, get in, and drive away, but the next clear memory he had was Dom's concerned face asking: _How did it go? Did he ask for a second date?_

***

The second and then third dates went better, each smoother than the last, and they even grew accustomed to having Dom around as a perpetual third wheel, though his job as protecter of Arthur's chastity seemed to be wearing on him. He kept checking his phone for messages from the babysitter.

 

"Really, you don't have to be here."

 

"Yes, I do, Arthur. It's just how things are done."

 

The man could be frustratingly archaic sometimes.

 

But even Dominic Cobb had his limits, though as per usual, he found a brilliant way around the problem. There was a job — a legit corporate one for training purposes. Though it was on the up and up, the job was complex enough that it required a full team: an extractor, an architect, a point man, and worst of all, not one, but _two_ forgers.

 

Arthur immediately saw the plan for what it was — a way to babysit him and Julian and also test him to make sure he no longer harbored feelings for Eames.

 

"You must think I'm stupid," he growled when Dom first came to him with the plan.

 

"Of course I don't," Dom said, having the nerve to actually look concerned that Arthur might think differently.

 

"Well, let me guess, the other forger you're bringing in is Eames."

 

"He's the best," Dom said simply, as if in any way factored into his decision.

 

"Bullshit. I know he's the best. That's not what this is about. You're either hoping I write him off completely or Julian puts him through a wall," Arthur spat, aware he was hovering close to shouting and not caring.

 

Dom had the decency not to deny it. He simply grasped Arthur by his shoulder and his forehead did that crinkly thing it did when he raised his brows and tried to look like he was relating with his subordinates.

 

"There's nothing to worry about. You're with Julian, not Eames."

 

If only things were that simple.

 

***

 

_Atlanta, Georgia_

 

He met Julian outside of the office building where they would be setting up their workspace. He handed him a muffin, a cup of coffee, and kissed him chastely on the lips before they headed inside.

 

They still hadn't consummated things, but there had been little signs of affection: a kiss, hand-holding, Julian doing things like holding doors for him.

 

Arthur found himself liking it. It was innocent and sweet and made him feel loved, even though Julian hadn't used that word yet, thank God. It was too early for that.

 

 _This is how it's supposed to work_ , he reminded himself. Alphas were supposed to take care of their Omegas — not abandon them after a single night of frenzied rutting.

 

As it turned out, Arthur wasn't emotionally prepared to see Eames, who swaggered into the workspace and deliberately greeted everyone else before he approached Arthur's desk, and then _sat on the edge_ like they were old chums or some shit.

 

He was wearing pleated pants, a terrible Hawaiian floral shirt and a white blazer. He looked like Magnum P.I. Arthur wanted to beat him bloody with his stapler.

 

"Darling," he purred, elongating the vowels and letting the rest of the letters roll around in his mouth.

 

Arthur's gaze flitted past him to Julian, who was pretending to be very interested in a file he had open in his hands, but was obviously glancing in their direction.

 

"Eames," he said, trying to sound as disinterested and as professional as possible.

 

The forger followed his gaze to Julian and seemed to work out everything on the spot right then and there. In all likelihood, he probably smelled Julian on Arthur. But to his credit, Eames said no more, though he did hum thoughtfully as he stood up and headed toward the lone unoccupied desk in the corner.

 

***

 

"He's a bit old for you, isn't he?"

 

Arthur rolled his eyes as he opened the microwave located in the office's small kitchenette. He was reheating some takeout Olof, the architect, had brought in for the team.

 

"He's a year older than you, Eames," Arthur sighed, tearing open the plastic bag that held the disposable cutlery.

 

"My point exactly. I'm practically a fossil," the forger responded, looking entirely too pleased with himself. He wasn't even making any food or brewing coffee. He was just leaning against the counter, at rest but still possessing enormous power like an indolent lion.

 

Arthur was beginning to think Dom was a genius. This was so, so much better than stammering like an idiot outside the forger's hotel room. Eames was actually _jealous_.

 

He looked at the man. Something had happened to his eyebrow. There was a small line that looked like a scar, but might have actually been a deliberate razor job by the forger. _Who does something like that on purpose?_

His amusement vanished instantly. Suddenly, he found himself irrationally angry. Eames was trying to fuck this up for him — this healthy, good relationship with an Alpha who treated him well. Why? Because it amused him?

 

Arthur balled up the plastic bag, threw it away, and picked up his food. He would eat at his desk if it meant getting a moment's peace from Eames.

 

"Just let it go," he whispered, hoping that would be sufficient warning.

 

Of course, it wasn't.

 

***

 

Global Advantage was a business specializing in importing and exporting products — hardly thrilling stuff. Yet the business was run by Peter Goodwin, an extremely paranoid man, who made it a requirement that his employees enter a dreamshare and be tested on certain merits, including when a forger disguised as one of their peers approached them and propositioned them with shady business proposals.

 

His business currently employed over three hundred people, which is why two PASIVs and two forgers were necessary.

 

Stupidly, Arthur thought maybe this might mean Julian and Eames would be kept separated, like they were working two different jobs. This, sadly, was not the case.

 

The first day, Dom proposed they all go on a test run together.

 

Things quickly devolved into the equivalent of a dick-measuring contest.

 

Eames immediately made it known that he was the superior forger as he quickly morphed into about a hundred and fifteen different people in under two minutes. He had the gall to look _bored_ at the end of the display as he examined his finger nails.

 

"Any of those work?"

 

Dom looked like he'd just stared too long at the sun.

 

"Uh, yeah. Those are great."

 

Julian countered by bending slightly at the waist to press his lips to Arthur's ear as he whispered.

 

"Funny little man, isn't he?"

 

Normally, Arthur would have counted the gesture as PDA, a cardinal sin in the workplace, but the look on Eames's face was worth it. He'd never seen such intense focus on the man's face, and he was counting their time together on inception.

 

Eames was not amused when they woke up. He yanked the line so hard from his arm that Arthur empathetically winced.

 

"Really, I don't see _why_ two forgers are necessary. I could easily handle this on my own," he said, aiming for casual, but exuding anger.

 

"There are too many employees," Julian said lightly, removing his line and handing it to Arthur before he stood. He rolled down his sleeve, keeping his gaze locked on Eames the whole time. "It'd take you too long to work through them."

 

Eames laughed humorlessly and Arthur quickly moved to stand closer to Julian. Eames saw that and it seemed to set him off.

 

"Oh, and you'll help, is that it? With your shoddy forges?"

 

That wasn't fair. Julian certainly wasn't as talented as Eames —no one was— but he did good work. He'd let Eames get away with a lot, but he wouldn't let him insult people's work reputations, especially if the person was Julian.

 

"That's enough," he said with such conviction both forgers turned to look at him. He made sure to use his serious point man voice —the one that scared the shit out of henchmen and broke through Dom's grief.

 

This time, when he spoke again, he looked solely at Eames.

 

"Keep it professional or I'll fire you so fast, you won't know which way is up."

 

Arthur and Eames had fought in the past, one or two times nearly coming to blows, but Arthur had never, ever threatened to fire the forger. Eames looked genuinely stunned, and for a second, Arthur felt remorse. Despite what he exuded to the rest of the world, Eames was a proud man who knew he did damn good work.

 

Arthur was probably the only person in the room who picked up on the litany of expressions that flashed across the forger's face in the next split second: shock, grief, and then ultimately anger.

 

"Right. Cheers," he muttered before stalking across the room to the stairway exit.

 

No one stopped him.

 

***

 

Arthur knew that wasn't a _Eames stormed out and quit_ exit, but a _let the wanker cool off-_ type thing, but regardless, at five o'clock he walked over to Julian's desk and announced he needed a drink.

 

They went to a shitty little place near their hotel and drained the well of its whiskey.

 

This was date seven, technically, and though they were past the point of chaperones, their relationship was still unconsummated. For a time, Arthur wondered if Julian was having second thoughts. For all he knew, he might have still smelled like Eames. However, upon reflection, Julian didn't seem like that kind of Alpha, and besides, he kept asking Arthur on more dates, so there must be something —some kind of spark— to keep him interested.

 

 _Maybe tonight_ , Arthur thought as they walked unsteadily back to their hotel. He was staying on the fifth floor and Julian had a room on the third. Because he was a gentleman, the Alpha offered to walk Arthur back to his room as he had every night since they arrived to Atlanta.

 

And there was a moment, when Julian's large frame pressed him into the door and they were kissing deeply and slightly sloppy, and the Alpha's arms wound around his waist, that Arthur thought _yes, tonight_.

 

Then Julian released him and stepped away. Arthur was standing there breathless, his lips swollen, too stunned to properly articulate a coherent thought.

 

"I'll swing 'round tomorrow morning to fetch you," was all Julian said before he grasped Arthur's hand, kissed the back of it, and made his way toward the elevator.

 

His gaze fell to the hallway carpet —some terrible pattern that looked like a kindergardener had thrown paint at a patch of vomit. They must choose the cheapest possible swatches for places like this. Tomorrow, he was going to demand Dom upgrade them to a better establishment.

 

He felt numb as he fumbled with his keycard and finally got the door open. Arthur leaned back slowly and rested his head against the door, shutting his eyes for only a split second before there came a frantic knock. Without thinking, he turned and threw the door open, fully expecting to see Dom there, bags in hand, saying they'd been made and they had to flee. It only occurred to him a moment after opening the door that the scenario made no sense. They weren't criminal right now. Everything was on the up and up this time around.

 

But it wasn't Dom. Julian was standing there, somehow looking like he'd just run through a wind tunnel even though he'd looked put together less than a minute ago. He must have run from the elevator. The Alpha took one look at Arthur and suddenly he was inside the room, grabbing him, slamming the door so hard it rattled on the hinges.

 

" _Fuck_ ," was all he heard the man whisper before they were kissing, roughly this time, and suddenly his feet were off the ground and his legs were wrapped around the forger's waist. His back crashed into the door and Julian made a soft, distressed sound against his mouth. For a second, he thought maybe the man was hurt, but then he realized Julian thought _he_ was hurt.

 

"M'sorry. Fuck, m'sorry," he gasped.

 

Arthur's fingers clawed at his back and he shook his head, trying to indicate he was okay without actually having to speak. Then they were kissing again. He could feel he was already wet inside his supremely expensive slacks — just from the kiss, just from the _smell_ of Julian. This was exactly how things were supposed to be. Him and Julian. Right here. Tonight.

 

He wouldn't have held it against the man if Julian had torn the clothes from his frame, and Arthur _loved_ his suits, but the Alpha actually took his time, seating him on the edge of the bed and undressing him, carefully popping the buttons from their holes, running his hands along the plains of skin. Arthur watched breathlessly, loving how their skin tones contrasted, and desperately wanting to see Julian rutting between his thighs.

 

Arthur knew what was supposed to happen next. He was to present himself to his Alpha on his hands and knees and raise his ass in the air. When he was a teenager, his father, looking mortified, had handed him a pamphlet titled _So You're An Omega_ that included some very graphic imagery, but the picture of the Omega bowed submissively before his mate always stuck with him. At the time, he'd felt inexplicably angry. Later, Arthur realized it was because he didn't like the idea of surrendering himself like that. It felt like giving away a special piece of himself, and for what? Sex?

 

He hadn't bowed for Eames, but then again, they weren't mates.

 

Now, he had no reservations. All he could focus on was the wetness between his thighs and Julian's length, which was free now, his hard cock pressed against Arthur's thigh. It hurt and it also felt amazingly good as Julian ground his hips forward. Arthur placed his palms against his muscular chest and shoved him backward, or tried to, as he started to roll onto his stomach. He wanted to feel Julian inside him _now_.

 

He eventually figured out Julian was keeping him pinned on his back and was whispering something in a soothing voice.

 

"Like this…want to see you."

 

 _Fuck_. Arthur might have actually said that aloud. He couldn't be sure because he was too busy throwing his legs over Julian's shoulders and rolling onto his upper back so he could thrust his ass into the air. Every inch of his flesh felt like it was on fire, and there was something pulsating deep within his body, a completely alien feeling that he was _sure_ could be fixed by Julian fucking him.

 

Their skin was slippery with sweat, making it easier for his legs to slide up and the backs of his knees to perch on Julian's shoulder blades. He'd remembered reading about how mates sweat during sex to release pheromones or something, but that thought sailed out of his head as Julian began pushing inside him. His stomach muscles contracted and his lips opened, but no sound came out.

 

"Shh, that's it. Good boy. Open for me," the Alpha rumbled, and for some reason, the sound of his voice helped him relax and then he could feel Julian's hips flush against his ass. He couldn't look away from the man's face even though he was pretty sure he'd read something about Omegas needing to keep their eyes lowered respectfully during sex.

 

Julian seemed to like the eye contact. He swore softly again, bowed to kiss Arthur, and at the same time bucked, pulling out and then thrusting back inside with a single smooth stroke.

 

Then Arthur started moaning and crying, and once he started, he couldn't stop. He remembered his first time with Eames when he'd made an embarrassing amount of noise, but the forger had only encouraged it. _That's right darling. Let me hear you._

He angrily pushed the thought out of his head.

 

"Harder," he groaned, and Julian obliged, fucking the thought of Eames clear out of his head. He reached up to grip the headboard, which was banging against the wall, and used it as leverage to fold himself nearly in half. He could see Julian's powerful arms braced on either side of him as he snapped his hips forward, knocking the air clear out of Arthur's lungs, along with a series of sustained whines, his voice jumping every time Julian slammed forth.

 

He could feel his cock leaking against his stomach, but he was too afraid to touch himself because he knew the second he did, he was going to come so hard he might pass out.

 

It was only when Julian was close that the forger balanced on one arm and began stroking Arthur's cock rapidly.

 

" _Fuck_ , don't," Arthur whined, trying to warn him, but it was too late. He came blindingly hard, his come painting his chest and stomach, and then he was only dimly aware of Julian atop him, crushing him into the mattress, thrusting so hard Arthur knew he was going to be limping around the office tomorrow.

 

He snapped out of his daze when he heard the forger grunt loudly and felt Julian growing thick as the knot filled him. This was one of those moments no amount of research could prepare Arthur for. Of course, he'd read about knotting. He knew what to expect, and still he panicked. He squirmed a bit and tightened his legs around Julian's waist.

 

Sensing his discomfort, the man kissed his neck and whispered, "Bear down on it, love. Don't move too much. You'll hurt yourself."

 

Arthur was thoroughly impressed Julian could string together words at the moment. All he could do was summon the energy to obey, using his inner muscles to squeeze the knot. Julian gasped, and the strategy seemed to work. He finally stopped growing. Then, he felt Julian coming, hot and deep inside him. Arthur trembled a little and gripped the man's back, holding him close.

 

It was then that Arthur realized they'd made a terrible strategic mistake. Julian chuckled hoarsely against Arthur's temple as he felt the Omega squirming beneath him.

 

"I said keep still," he chastised without any real heat behind it.

 

"You're heavy," Arthur complained, but he was smiling, liking how full he felt, willing to put up with the weight and the rapidly drying come adhering to his stomach.

 

"Next time, you can be the little spoon," Julian whispered, kissing him softly in a way that warmed Arthur's body, but in a different way from before. He felt strange and he wasn't sure why.

 

"So good to me," Arthur murmured against his lips, kissing him again and again, and they stayed like that for a long time until Julian's knot started to soften.

 

When they separated, Julian walked naked to the bathroom and Arthur took the time to spread out luxuriously, work out the kinks in his legs, and admire the sight of his Alpha's rear.

 

He returned a moment later with a damp wash cloth.

 

"On your back. C'mon," he said, giving Arthur's ass a gentle smack when he hesitated, grinning up at the man.

 

"Ow, fine," Arthur sighed, secretly liking the sensation.

 

The Alpha gently cleaned off Arthur and afterwards rested his palm against the Omega's stomach. He suddenly looked thoughtful and Arthur grew concerned.

 

"What is it?"

 

"We should have a mating ceremony."

 

Arthur was temporarily stunned. Of course, it made sense that Julian would want to have a ceremony. He'd done everything else by the book, so a party with vows and family and friends fit that pattern, but Arthur was still surprised.

 

Any hesitancy he felt vanished when his Alpha's expression softened.

 

"I want you to meet my mum and dad. Before the cubs arrive."

 

His hand rubbed gently at the firm surface of his stomach and Arthur swallowed thickly. Naturally, he'd known that's what they were doing, but Julian saying it aloud solidified things for him. Cubs. _Babies_.

 

"Yeah, of course," he whispered, smiling reassuringly when Julian looked at him with concern. "Yes."

 

Then his Alpha smiled and fell upon him, kissing and tickling his sides until Arthur was laughing and clinging to him again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr: http://theaoidos.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On mating ceremonies and jerk forgers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeee...I cannot believe I've written almost 14,000 words for this fic in the past two days, but it's been super fun, and in my head there's still two or three parts to come. But knowing me, that might end up being a conservative estimate. Thanks for all the lovely compliments!
> 
> Finally, Eames POV.

After storming out of the office, Eames went to the nearest bar and got spectacularly smashed. The worst part was he couldn't pinpoint exactly why he was so bloody furious, but after four scotches, a hunch was beginning to formulate. Actually, it was a single memory that came rushing back to him as he slouched in a booth, trying to look dejected and miserable enough that the world would leave him alone.

 

Eames was the son of a hotel maid and a miserable drunk who deserved every terrible thing that eventually came his way. The bastard, his father, didn't even have the decency to leave his mother. He cheated on her and still hung around to beat them both whenever he drank himself into a blacked out stupor. Then, one day, Eames was too big to push around. He vividly remembered standing between his mother and his father, who was raging drunk, and punching him square in the face, breaking his jaw.

 

His father left and never came back.

 

After that, Eames vowed never to become like his father, so it was not without a little irony that he found himself, a middle-aged lecherous drunk, wondering if he'd terribly miscalculated when deciding to live a life of global debauchery.

 

 _Arthur_. All of the problems could be traced back to buggering gorgeous, maddening _Arthur_.

 

When they met, Eames had thought the perimeters of their relationship would end at some harmless flirting — perhaps a bit of enthusiastic sex, but he'd been so wrong. The next night, Arthur had looked at him so openly and earnestly that he immediately thought of his Omega mother gazing at his worthless father with such love and trust that he was seized by the desire to run. 

 

So he had. Away from Arthur.

 

It was in both of their interests that he not hang around.

 

But now he was working this horribly dull job with _bloody Arthur_ and another Alpha who stood too close to the point man and touched him too familiarly.

 

His anxiety was compounded by the fact that the Omega smelled heavenly lately. Eames thought perhaps his sense of smell was heightened by the prescription medicine he was taking for muscle spasms in his shoulder — remnants of an old injury earned when he was held in Egypt for a month and worked over by the Mukhabarat. 

 

But it wasn't that. Arthur smelled _different_.

 

He'd realized at the end of the first day working with the team that Arthur must have stopped taking his suppressors. Before leaving that evening, he'd walked into the kitchenette and witnessed _fucking Julian_ crowding Arthur up against the counter, mouthing at his neck. Of course, once Arthur spotted Eames, he shot out of the room faster than he could think of something clever to quip. 

 

The notoriously perfectionist point man would never have allowed such a lapse in professionalism unless he was starting his heat.

 

The next day, the team went under together for the first time, and…well…Eames hadn't handled it well.

 

***

 

When Eames entered the work space the next day, he made sure to wear his most disarming smile, fully prepared for Arthur to rip into him for having walked out yesterday, but he quickly realized the point man was no where to be seen.

 

"Where's the love of my life?" he asked innocently, fully aware Julian was staring daggers into his back.

 

Dom also didn't look amused, and he didn't look up from his laptop as he addressed the forger.

 

"He called out sick," he said flatly.

 

Eames slipped off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, but he paused when Dom responded, looking up to the extractor and then sliding his gaze over to Julian, who was staring back at him looking rather smug.

 

_Sick. Right._

 

He'd been with enough Omegas to know what "sick" really meant. Arthur was in heat, probably wet and writhing in Julian's bed right now, sore from whatever the hell they'd been up to last night, but still probably _begging_ for it.

 

Eames was seized by the irrational urge to grab Julian and shake him for leaving Arthur in such a state. Why had he come to work? To rub it in?

 

About fifteen minutes into the work day, Julian's cellphone buzzed across the surface of his desk and he quickly answered it. His voice was pitched low, but Eames could still make out every word of his end of the conversation, and his sensitive ears knew the voice on the other end was Arthur's.

 

"Yes, love. I know. Sit tight. I'll be there as soon as I can," Julian murmured while he stood and fetched his jacket, draping it over his arm.

 

The man strode over to Dom's desk.

 

"That was Arthur. He's still not feeling well. I think I should go tend to him," he explained.

 

"Of course," Dom said immediately, and Eames noticed he looked up from his laptop when _Julian_ spoke to him, the rat bastard.

 

This was different, though. The three of them were Alphas, and though none of them would say it, they all knew the others understood that Arthur was in heat, and an Omega in heat was always an Alpha's priority.

 

Especially for an Omega's mate.

 

Julian left and was gone the rest of the day. Eames tried not to think about what that meant. At one point, Dom set down a cup of coffee on his desk and Eames wondered when the hell he'd gotten up and made his way to the kitchen. He must have been more distracted than he thought.

 

"Well, the good news is you just may be doing this job on your own after all," Dom said perfectly affably. 

 

Eames wanted to strangle him with his tie.

 

He leaned back in his chair and spread his legs wide, assuming an insolent posture just so Dom understood he couldn't give two flying fucks what Julian did or didn't do on this job.

 

"You don't think much of me, do you?" he asked, his lips ticking upward into a smirk.

 

To his credit, Dom didn't looked fazed in the slightest. He took a sip from his coffee mug without breaking eye contact.

 

"I think you're a great forger."

 

"That's not what I mean."

 

He swirled the mug a bit, glancing down, no doubt watching the liquid swish about.

 

"Arthur is like my brother," Dom began, furrowing his brow and levelling Eames with a very Cobb-like squint. The forger folded his hands across his stomach and remained quiet, deciding to see where this was going.

 

"I've only his best interests in mind," he ended simply, tactfully.

 

Eames was never very good at leaving things alone.

 

"And I would have been bad for him."

 

"You were never even an option," Dom said.

 

When Eames looked genuinely baffled at his response, he added incredulously, "Eames, you _left_."

 

At that, the forger dropped his gaze and moved closer to the desk so he could busy himself by picking up a pen and twirling it between his fingers. He needed to do something with his hands so he could think. _True_. He had left, but Dom had always been a snob who thought his precious point man was too good for him. _Hadn't he?_

 

His immediate impulse was to be snide and cruel.

 

"Well, now you've replaced me with a newer model, so I'm sure you're thrilled," he said, his lips twisting into a sneer. 

 

Dom stared at him.

 

"Grow up," he ordered before marching back to his own corner.

 

They didn't speak for the rest of the day.

 

As it turned out, Dom was right. Eames ended up doing the forges himself in an absolutely insane marathon that he first jokingly, and then seriously, said should be included in the Guinness Book of World Records. Dom finally had to shoot down the idea they call Guinness when he realized Eames was completely serious.

 

Olof bailed as soon as they'd closed the PASIVs.

 

"Listen, man, don't call me for no more corporate gigs, okay?" he drawled in his thick Russian accent.

 

Dom smirked and nodded understandingly.

 

"I appreciate the help, my friend." 

 

They shook hands and Olof was gone.

 

"Why did you take this job?" Eames asked when they were standing at the exit after having tidied up the room. 

 

Earlier, Eames had stopped himself from wiping down his desk for fingerprints. It wasn't like the old days, and he found himself wondering why Dom had gone to the trouble of leaving his precious little offspring on the opposite coast after everything they'd been through.

 

Dom was holding both PASIVs, one in each hand because he clearly didn't trust Eames to hold either of them. The forger begrudgingly admitted to himself that Dom had made the right call.

 

"Why did _you_ take it?" Dom countered, standing straight, staring down at Eames from his couple inch height advantage.

 

Eames smirked defensively. _Right_. They had a mutual understanding. Dom took the job because he wanted Eames to understand Arthur was no longer on the market, auctioned off to the first respectable Alpha who would look twice at him, and Eames took the job to see the Omega again — maybe seduce him into another passionate roll in the hay. 

 

The forger refused to consider he had deeper motives than that. Arthur was lovely — no Alpha would deny that. The fact that he'd been single this long was an absolute tragedy, but Eames could only ever appreciate him in an incredibly limited, narrow way. The point man deserved better that that. He deserved someone like…well, Julian, he admitted resentfully. The other forger had looked pathetically smitten with Arthur, mooning over him whenever he had a moment to spare, smiling like a bloody fool whenever they had a chance to speak.

 

This is what normal Alphas and Omegas did. They paired off, bred, and had magical little lives in pretty little boxes behind white picket fences.

 

Arthur would have lots of little babies and retire and be absolutely wasted in some suburb. Eames was trying to imagine him at a PTA meeting before he realized Dom was speaking to him.

 

"…payment as soon as it clears," he said, straightening a bit, looking at him, and sighing.

 

"Goodbye, Eames."

 

"Cheers, Cobb."

 

***

 

He didn't hear from the lot of them for six months after that. 

 

Eames returned to Mombasa where it was oppressively hot and familiar. He robbed the local casinos blind before they sent some brutes after him and he had to lay low for a while. After all, it wasn't exactly like he could blend into the Kenyan crowds. He had a habit of sticking out like a sore thumb. 

 

The forger had a huge map of the world spread out on his apartment floor and was just about to throw a dart at it, allowing fate to decide his next move, when his cellphone rang.

 

Eames flipped it open and couldn't even fire off a greeting before the voice on the other end was rambling away.

 

"Where the bloody hell have you been? You know three separate dreamers told me you were dead? Amber, that chemist you had that fling with last summer was it? She told me she actually _saw your bloated corpse_ , but now I see that was merely a fantasy on her part."

 

"Hello, Yusuf."

 

"Right, hello, is it? When are you flying out to New York for the grand celebration?"

 

Eames tossed the dart and it landed in America. In the Midwest. He plucked it from the floor, sat back down, and took aim again. That was just a practice throw, he decided.

 

"What are you on about?"

 

Yusuf paused then and he could hear the chemist moving something —papers, it sounded like — around his desk.

 

"Ah, sorry old boy. I thought you knew," Yusuf said, sounding like he'd just put his foot in it.

 

He sighed, annoyed, wishing Yusuf would stop beating around the bush.

 

"Knew _what_?"

 

"Arthur is marrying that bloke — the big bugger. Julian, is it?"

 

Eames didn't remember standing up and walking into the center of the room, crushing the map beneath his bare feet, but that's what he did and that's where he ended up — frozen there in a daze.

 

"What the hell?" he asked articulately.

 

"Uh, yes. 'Fraid so."

 

"When?" he demanded, suddenly seized by some laser-like focus, the same way he felt before a big job.

 

"Fuck," Yusuf sighed. "Look, I need to know you're not going to do anything mad. I know I don't let on, but I'm terrified of Arthur."

 

"When? _Where_?" Eames commanded in the same tone he used in his military days to get scared young men to run toward gunfire. The only problem was, Yusuf was never a soldier.

 

"I must know you're not going to do something mad like show up, and…I don't know…club Julian to death and throw Arthur over your shoulder," he rambled, the sound of papers shuffling now reaching a frenzied volume.

 

Eames took a deep breath. This wasn't working. He had to try a different angle. He put on his best professional voice.

 

"Arthur is one of my dearest friends and I want to wish him all the best on this most special of days."

 

Yusuf didn't sound remotely convinced.

 

"Right, but there's the whole business of not having _invited_ you in the first place, isn't there?"

 

The way Eames saw it, and what prior interrogation experience taught him, this could go one of two ways: he could threaten to kick in Yusuf's backdoor, murder him and that stupid cat he loved so much, and raze his home and lab to the ground, or…

 

"I'll pay you."

 

That changed everything, of course.

 

"Ah. How much?"

 

"Five."

 

"Thousand?"

 

"Piss off! Hundred."

 

"Goodbye, Eames."

 

"Wait! Goddamnit. Fine. Five thousand."

 

"All right. But I'm only doing this because you're a friend."

 

***

 

Eames didn't have Arthur's brilliant researching skills, so he had to buy his knowledge. He bribed Yusuf for the time, date, and location of the mating ceremony, put on his best suit, combed back his hair with pomade, and hopped onto the first flight out.

 

The entire trip took over twenty hours and took him from Mombasa to Nairobi to London, and finally to New York. Thankfully, Yusuf had spilled the details early enough where he would have just enough time to land, pay for a car, and walk through Arthur's front door in time for the ceremony.

 

Beyond that, he didn't have a plan. 

 

Maybe he'd kill Julian. No, that wouldn't work. Arthur would never forgive him and he'd go to prison.

 

Eames decided he'd come up with something, though it was difficult to think clearly. The flights had seemed unending and his stupid Alpha brain was working in overdrive, sending messages to the rest of his body to release mass quantities of testosterone.

 

Before he knew it, he was standing outside Arthur's flat without a plan, his suit crumpled from the flight, his hand shaking when he curled it into a fist and rapped at the door. The murmur of voices resonated from within before he heard someone opening the lock.

 

Ah, well. He told himself he was better when he improvised, anyway.

 

The door opened and Arthur stood there, staring blankly at him.

 

"What the _fuck,_ Arthur?"

 

The point man quickly moved into the hallway and shut the door behind him. He was dressed in a gorgeous dark blue suit, Yves Saint Laurent, from the look and cut of it. The pants hugged his thighs intimately. Eames had to tell himself to focus on remaining furious. Arthur was holding his hands up in a pacifying gesture that Eames immediately recognized as the same strategy he used when the forger and Dom were at each other's throats.

 

"Eames, please. Calm down. Lower your voice," he said, looking so completely freaked out that it actually did calm Eames a bit. Arthur might not have been _his_ Omega, but he was still an Omega and as an Alpha he hated knowing he was upsetting him.

 

" _Married_?" he hissed, keeping his volume in check, but allowing the fury to bleed through. "You get married and don't even _tell_ me? How long have we known each other?"

 

"Thirteen years," Arthur responded without hesitation, the little robotic twit.

 

"Thirteen bloody years and you don't think to tell me you're getting married?" 

 

Eames was breathing hard and he could feel his hair coming loose from the pomade's grip. He probably looked insane but he didn't care.

 

"I didn't think you'd be interested in that part of my life," Arthur responded calmly, looking infuriatingly placid about the whole thing. His pale skin was perfect and every hair on his head had been combed into submission. He looked exactly like he'd spent an hour grooming for the most important day of his life, and now his crazy…what? Ex-lover? Not even that…had invaded his sanctuary to ruin everything.

 

"Of course I'm interested," he said quickly.

 

"Well, you were never very interested in me before," and this time Eames heard it — the hurt in his voice. 

 

That stunned Eames into silence because he simply didn't have a response prepared. He'd been a total prat and it had finally bitten him in the worst way. All those years spent fretting over what would happen if he stayed —Would he become his father? Would he grow bored and start cheating?— and he'd made an equally terrible decision by leaving Arthur.

 

Arthur seemed to think the conversation was over because he turned back toward the door.

 

"I love you," Eames blurted because he was nothing if not a ballsy gambler. 

 

The heavy sigh and roll of Arthur's eyes were not exactly the responses he'd been hoping for.

 

"And you discovered this when? Around the time Julian and I decided to mate?"

 

Eames stared at him, terrified and trying not to show it. Arthur looked _angry_ , which mystified him completely. He'd been honest. He'd spoken his feelings. Things were supposed to repair themselves now.

 

He couldn't speak, but it didn't matter because Arthur kept talking.

 

"Did it ever occur to you that we slept together once and now your Alpha brain is telling you I'm yours?"

 

 _Yes_ , Eames thought emphatically. _That's right. You're mine._

 

"Julian isn't _tricking_ me, Eames. I'm not being stolen away from you. I'm _not yours_. I never was. You didn't want me, remember?" 

 

Arthur looked vulnerable as he had that night outside his hotel room. His eyes wide, terribly young, asking Eames if he could stay with him.

 

"I did want you. I've been a fool," he offered, sickened by the thought that everything he would do from now on would be too late.

 

He took a step forward, but that was the worst thing he could have done it seemed because Arthur looked ready to dart back inside the apartment. Eames stopped in his tracks.

 

"Stop saying that shit. It's too late, okay? It's too late for us."

 

"It'll never be too late for us," he whispered, knowing he was standing close enough for Arthur to hear him.

 

He wondered dumbly when Arthur started to cry. The point man quickly wiped at his face, and when he spoke again, his voice shook with barely restrained anger.

 

"I want you to leave. Julian is going to be back with his parents soon. He can't see you here. Do you understand me?"

 

"Come with me," he implored, stepping forward suddenly, and when Arthur took a step backward, he collided with the hallway wall.

 

Eames touched his face, relearning the angular lines of his cheekbones, how hot and wet his skin felt when he cupped his cheeks.

 

"I can't," Arthur whispered before Eames kissed him, only for a moment, only until Arthur shoved him so violently he nearly toppled backward.

 

"You have to go," he demanded. "I mean it, Eames. He'll kill you if he sees you here."

 

And just like that, Arthur disappeared back inside the apartment. 

 

***

Yusuf said the ceremony had been lovely. Very low-key. Just him, Ariadne, Dom, the sprogs, Arthur's grandmother, and Julian's family. Everyone who was important in Arthur's new life.

 

"I cannot believe you asked him to run away with you," he laughed, kicking his feet up on the beautiful coffee table Eames had salvaged from a flea market.

 

The forger took a long swig of beer and shrugged.

 

"What can I say? I've always been a romantic at heart."

 

"You're a complete git, is what you are. Imagine if Julian had come home and seen you necking with his Omega in _his_ home."

 

He still couldn't shake the surge of anger he felt when Julian's name was mentioned in his presence.

 

"I do imagine it. Every day."

 

Yusuf was never one for teary confessions, so he promptly changed the subject. Tilting back his head to polish off the last few droplets of beer at the base of the bottle, Yusuf then gestured with the empty vessel. 

 

"Say, what if I was to tell you of an interesting employment opportunity that recently fell into my lap?"

 

Eames stared at him, plainly miserable, but willing to engage.

 

"I'd want to know how much it paid."

 

Yusuf grinned.

 

"Well, that's the thing. It pays _quite well_ because it happens to be extremely dangerous, dodgy work stateside."

 

Later, Eames would wish he could say he didn't feel a thrill of excitement at the thought of being close to Arthur — in the same country as him.

 

"Tell me." 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The forger's downward spiral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't entirely sure what the arc of this story would be when I began writing it, so please note the changing tags. Please know I wasn't trying to pull a fast one on anyone, but I too was surprised with where this went. Hope you enjoy!

The thing about Yusuf was he was a perfectly likeable bloke and a stellar drinking partner, but he was also an unscrupulous bastard who would sell out his own mother to turn a profit.

 

On the other hand, most of Eames's close friends fit that description.

 

Come to think of it, there was only one person he knew who was loyal to a fault, but Eames didn't waste time thinking about him anymore. He _didn't_. That's why he'd taken this ridiculously dangerous job in Philadelphia trying to infiltrate the Bruno crime family, a Philly mob that was no joke — not quite the level of the Five Families, but no one had told _them_ that. These boys weren't playing around, and every second Eames felt a block of icy dread in his gut, just knowing with absolute certainty this was going to end badly.

 

Their employers were the Pagan's, a motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate that had recently come into a bit of a small fortune and could suddenly afford the likes of a chemist and forger to first infiltrate the rival gang, then put them under to extract all kinds of pertinent information a fellow crime family might find interesting.

 

It was insanely dodgy work, Yusuf had been right about that much, but Eames was feeling just the right amount of self-destructive to accept the job.

 

Infiltrating crime families was not the arduous task it once was. This wasn't Donnie Brasco stuff. Eames simply showed up to a dodgy part of town —to a bar where he knew the family were patrons— and volunteered his services as a jack of all trades. Naturally, he was greeted with a degree of trepidation, but that only lasted until he rode along for his first job, a bank robbery, but before they could even get to the bloody target, a police officer pulled their van over.

 

While the sprogs he'd been sent on the ride along with wet their diapers about what to do, Eames rolled open the door, pulled out a gun and shot the cop in the knee.

 

"What the _fuck_ , man!" the driver screamed.

 

"Drive," Eames barked and the kid slammed on the gas.

 

Yes, they had to lay low for a while after the hubbub, but Eames helped them get away. He was in like Flynn after that.

 

They called him Crazy Southie because Eames had opted for a Boston accent — just enough distance that it would be plausible no one in the Philly circuit would have heard of him by name.

 

Yusuf, the bastard, got to spend most of his time remotely held up in an abandoned factory they were using as their lab. The Pagan's owned the lot, so they didn't have to worry about nosy cops or neighbors swinging by when they smelled the mad scientist's chemicals.

 

"I'm experimenting with a batch of Somnacin that makes the dreamer feel very trusting, so you can just show up and they'll spill all their secrets to you," he explained as he perched on a stool before the table full of test tubes and glass beakers. He was wearing a pair of plastic goggles that made his eyes look slightly bulbous.

 

Eames took a seat on the stool opposite the table and watched the man work for a couple minutes before Yusuf paused.

 

"Oh, say, did you hear Arthur's pregnant?"

 

Yusuf didn't notice Eames reacting for a couple beats until he looked over and saw the forger bent slightly at the waist, his face in his hands.

 

"What's wrong, old boy?"

 

"Jesus, _fuck_!" Eames shouted, startling Yusuf so badly that he immediately set down his test tubes. No need to cause an explosion.

 

"What? What is it?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder and at all the exits, half-expecting to see a swarm of police officers breaking inside.

 

" _Why_ do you tell me these things? These little life updates of his? You _do_ realize he tore my heart in half, don't you?" Eames asked, red in the face, looking like he was actually upset.

 

Yusuf felt out of his element.

 

"Sorry, I thought…you always said you were friends, so…"

 

"We're not bloody _friends_ , all right? Stop telling me about him."

 

"Right-o. Sorry."

 

An awkward silence followed, so oppressive that Eames found himself longing for the company of murderous gangsters. He stood suddenly.

 

"I'm off. Ring me when that batch is done."

 

Yusuf didn't respond and the only sound that filled his ears were his shoes clicking on the concrete floor.

 

***

 

The Bruno job ended up taking a long time — a very long time — six months, in fact.

 

Whenever an opportune time presented itself, something would happen to derail everything. The gang would get raided by the cops, or a high-ranking member would get killed or die of natural causes, and Eames had to call off the whole plan so he could go to the funeral and keep up appearances. Eames was genuinely surprised at how many mobsters died in a given month. They were dropping like flies.

 

And of course, when they eventually thought the exact right moment had arrived, everything went to hell.

 

For starters, Yusuf and he couldn't agree on how to put under a room full of extremely dangerous crime associates.

 

The plan started with elegant aspirations, hence the whole Eames infiltrating, learning their behavioral patterns, and inner-gang relations, but at the end of the sixth month, they were getting desperate, and as a result, sloppy.

 

They finally agreed on some kind of knock out gas, but then they were arguing about how to filter said gas into the back room of the gang's bar. Honestly, Eames marvelled at how Yusuf, a Beta, sometimes aggravated him more than Dom.

 

"You could shimmy into the vents and release the gas there," Yusuf proposed.

 

"Nah, mate, shoulder's are too broad," Eames said, shaking his head like he was bereaved to have been born built like a human triangle.

 

"Oh, piss off. Get over yourself," Yusuf spat.

 

Then they were fighting again.

 

The two of them finally settled on a less dramatic approach. There was a back door to the place that led to an alleyway. They'd walk up the lane at night, slide a small rubber tube under the door, and filter in the gas that way. Everyone inside would pass out, then they'd enter to put the members under one-by-one, robbing them of their secrets.

 

They hit a small snag when they arrived at the spot, both of them dressed all in black, armed with a rubber tube, and the barkeep suddenly threw open the back door. A ridiculous moment followed where the bartender, clutching a bag of trash, stared at Eames and Yusuf, who stared back, slack-jawed.

 

Then, all hell broke loose.

 

Yusuf and Eames darted in different directions, the bartender shouted, and fifty armed gang members came pouring out into the night.

 

Naturally, Eames was armed, but he hadn't brought more than a clip, so he was outmatched. He ended up crouched behind a dumpster in an alleyway, desperately trying to conserve his ammo. Of course, that was difficult to accomplish once he got pinned down. He could just make out a ladder to a fire escape on the other side of the trash bin, but reaching it would mean making himself terribly vulnerable.

 

He didn't have a choice. 

 

Eames booked it, firing off a couple rounds to provide an opening, but it didn't matter. There were too many of them. He grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder and felt a bullet bury itself in his arm. _Climb_ , he ordered ruthlessly. _Climb you bastard._

 

Somehow, he did, if only out of anger that these young punks thought _they_ would be the ones to take him down.

 

Once on the roof, he checked himself and saw he'd been clipped on the side, as well. That one wasn't dire, but his arm was pouring blood, and as his adrenaline plummeted, the pain surged up his arm, to his neck, and straight into his brain.

 

Eames pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his bicep, tying it tight to stymie the flow of blood. Then, he took off running again.

 

Filthy, sweating, covered in blood, he broke into the nearest car, hot-wired it, and tore off.

 

He estimated it would take him an hour and forty minutes to drive from Philadelphia to New York City, which was too long. He'd bleed out by then. So he sped, pushing the pedal to the floor, praying he wouldn't pass a cop. Eames was charming, but he wasn't _talk his way out of jail time while covered in blood_ charming. 

 

He made the trip in an hour, ditched the car, and just managed to summon the energy to knock on Arthur's door.

 

Someone answered. He didn't know who. Everything was a blur.

 

Then he fell.

 

***

 

"Jesus, what the bloody hell happened to him?"

 

"Shit. Fuck, grab his feet. Help me carry him."

 

Eames came to sometime later in a bathtub. The room swam for a moment before he could focus his eyes and became aware of someone tugging and prodding at his arm. He shut his eyes, furrowed his brow, and grunted, attempting to pull his appendage away from whoever the rude person was assaulting his person.

 

When he opened his eyes again and his head lolled to the side, he saw Arthur seated on the closed toilet, his brow furrowed, clutching a pair of tweezers.

 

"Don't move. I got the bullet out, but we don't have hydrogen peroxide, so Julian's getting some."

 

_Julian?_

 

"Fuck," Eames croaked, remembering the night in flashes. He'd driven all the way from Philadelphia because Arthur was the only person he trusted in the world.

 

"I'm going to sew you up, but I only have thread, so it'll scar probably."

 

Eames watched him for a moment, taking in the sight of the point man as he threaded the needle. 

 

"Scar?" he rasped, licking at his dry lips.

 

"Also, I don't have anything for the pain. Well, we have some painkillers, but I'm not giving them to you. I know how you get with that stuff."

 

 _Addicted_ , he meant. Arthur was too polite to make those kinds of accusations overtly.

 

"Besides," Arthur continued, "If I ease the pain, you won't learn a lesson."

 

He smiled slightly, a little devilishly, and Eames felt something inside him brighten. _There he is._

 

"You're gorgeous," he murmured because he could and Julian wasn't around anyway.

 

Arthur sighed in a way that was meant to sound very put upon, but really meant he secretly enjoyed the attention.

 

"Hold still," he whispered, beginning the business of stitching Eames back together. It hurt, but no more than getting shot in the first place.

 

Eames was more coherent now, looking Arthur over. He was pale, thin, and there were bags under his eyes. If not watched carefully, Arthur had a habit of running himself into the ground. He'd skip meals and stop sleeping if someone didn't occasionally take him gently by the arm and steer him away from his unending responsibilities. 

 

Just then, a thought popped into his confused head, and before he could think it over, he spoke.

 

"You're pregnant."

 

Arthur's hand froze and Eames saw his jaw twitch, but the point man quickly recovered, finished stitching, and snipped the thread with a pair of scissors.

 

"No," he said softly as he stood to gather his supplies.

 

Eames glanced down at his arm, which as promised, blossomed with angry stitches. It wasn't pretty, but it would hold.

 

"Yusuf told me," he continued dumbly, unable to think past the immediate words leaving Arthur's mouth.

 

Arthur clutched the side of the sink and bowed his head, and it was only then that Eames started to piece things together. Arthur _had_ been pregnant, but not anymore. Now, he was thin and pale and so tired.

 

The realization hurt more than being shot.

 

"Darling, I'm so sorry."

 

He could see Arthur's hands trembling as he finished cleaning up. Only Arthur could keep a bathroom relatively spotless after tending to a man who was bleeding like a stuck pig. He shook his dark head as if dismissing the condolences, but when he looked back to Eames, his eyes shone with unshed tears and his voice trembled.

 

"It's weird because…I didn't realize how badly I wanted cubs until I knew I couldn't have them."

 

Maybe it was none of his business, but Eames refused to let Arthur live in a world without any hope.

 

"It's very common, you know. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them."

 

Arthur smiled his sad, wry little smile at that.

 

"There's something wrong with me, Eames."

 

He wished so badly that he had the strength to stand then, to climb one more time and gather Arthur in his arms, and stroke his hair and call him lovely and perfect.

 

"There's nothing wrong with you," he whispered, feeling offended on Arthur's behalf.

 

Arthur laughed then, the sound loud in the small room, startling Eames, and the tears fell from his eyes finally. He quickly brushed them away with his hand.

 

"Fuck, sorry. My hormones are still going crazy. C'mon. Let's get you out of there."

 

Arthur helped him walk from the bathroom and found a pair of Julian's sweatpants and an old t-shirt Eames could wear since everything else he'd arrived in was blood-soaked and ruined. The forger was sitting on the couch, reading _Dwell — Arthur, you pretentious prat_ — when Julian returned carrying a small paper bag. He held it up before depositing it on the table in front of Eames.

 

"Hydrogen peroxide and some bandaids. Oh, some tweezers too because that'll have to come off eventually," he said, nodding to Eames's arm. Arthur had covered his slapdash stitch job with a bandage and some gauze. 

 

"Uh, cheers," he said, feeling horribly conflicted. 

 

Every part of Eames wanted to detest Julian for taking Arthur from him, but he knew the point man had left of his own free will. The crazier part of his mind wanted to blame Julian for something, _anything_ — Arthur losing the baby, his devastated emotional state, _something_.

 

But he could tell almost instantly that wasn't the case. Julian was treating Arthur like he was made of glass, handling he was sure the man hated, but the Alpha in him understood Julian's impulse. His mate was suffering and he needed to make it better.

 

Eames only stayed with them for a day after that, but he witnessed enough to understand Julian didn't blame Arthur for the miscarriage. More than once, he walked into the kitchen or living room to see the other forger tenderly cupping Arthur's face and whispering to him, or kissing his forehead. 

 

He wanted to hate Julian, but he simply didn't have the energy to do it anymore. 

 

Eames tried to imagine him and Arthur together, married and still engaged in illegal dreamsharing. What if Arthur had been pregnant then? Would they have kept running forever — until one of them died?

 

He knew Julian was still working, but it was also known that he'd dropped off the criminal radar for about a year, no doubt fully prepared to enter his role as a responsible father. Not for the first time, he found himself marvelling at a universe that rewarded terrible bastards like himself and punished good people like Arthur and Julian.

 

Arthur deserved a mate who cared for him, and was loyal to him, and who would hang around forever come what may.

 

Eames knew it was time to leave when Julian returned from some errands with a bouquet of flowers he ceremoniously handed to Arthur, who blushed and attempted to look annoyed, but was obviously flattered. 

 

"Anyway, I'm off," he said apropos of nothing.

 

Arthur and Julian looked over at him, surprised. It wasn't like Eames could have emitted any kind of warning. He hadn't arrived with bags. He had no possessions to pack aside from the paper bag of medical supplies, which he clutched in his hand. All he had were the clothes on his back — Julian's clothing, to be exact — a pair of sweatpants rolled at the waist to the proper length and an old Phish t-shirt. He'd made a mental note to ask Arthur about that later.

 

Assuming there'd _be_ a later.

 

Despite what Arthur claimed, Eames knew they'd have cubs eventually, and then they'd go off to do horribly domestic things together, and Arthur would forget about him. Maybe not for a long time, but it would happen eventually.

 

He knew Arthur had been wounded enough lately, so he didn't make a big show of it as he made his exit.

 

"Appreciate the hospitality," he said, throwing up a mock salute, earning a smirk from Arthur.

 

He gestured to the point man and looked at Julian.

 

"Take care of him."

 

"I will," he said sincerely.

 

Eames gazed one more time at Arthur's face and left the apartment.

 

***

 

Six weeks passed in which his behavior ranged from self-destructive to self-loathing. He stopped taking his painkillers because he'd remembered Arthur's disapproving stare that night in his bathroom, but he overcompensated with booze, gambling, and sex.

 

He tried not to think about _why_ he was consistently drawn to icy little brunettes. 

 

Yusuf emerged in week four —very much _not_ dead, somehow, the lucky duck— to join the binge and together they did unspeakable things to Mombasa's already shaky reputation.

 

Eames almost regretted telling Yusuf to stop giving him updates on Arthur's life. Occasionally, he found himself drunk and dangerously close to asking the chemist to spill all the details, but then he stopped himself. He realized he wasn't just addicted to pills and the like. He was also addicted to Arthur and he needed to make a clean break, for both their sakes.

 

When he awoke one Thursday afternoon, still drunk, feeling fat and greasy as he sprawled across his couch, he decided to get his shit together.

 

Eames started putting out feelers into the community, poking around for job opportunities. Fortunately, he was able to be picky. He _was_ the best, after all. Soon, the job offers started pouring in, and like the prick he was, Eames went radio silent. Now that he knew dreamshare still adored him, he could bide his time until the price tags on the offers skyrocketed.

 

When Dom arrived at his flat in Mombasa one evening, Eames thought, _bloody hell, I knew I was good. I didn't know I was_ ** _that_** _good._

 

He assumed, of course, his return to the field had inspired the extractor to come out of retirement.

 

As it turned out, that was an incorrect, some might say arrogant, assumption.

 

Dom looked _wrecked_ , and panic immediately seized his heart.

 

"Arthur?" he asked, not caring that his voice trembled.

 

Dom shook his head as he trudged into the apartment and fell heavily into an armchair.

 

"Julian," he rasped.

 

Eames was relieved, but only minutely. _Fuck. Julian._

 

_Arthur._

 

"Is it bad?"

 

Dom looked at him.

 

"He's dead."

 

There was a ringing in his ears and Eames couldn't think for a solid minute after Dom dropped that on him.

 

"How?" he asked again, feeling like he was walking through molasses as he moved to the coffee table and sat on it. Arthur must have been _devastated._

 

 _Fuck. Arthur._  

 

"Job went pear-shaped," Dom said simply, holding up his hands because, right, that happened all the bloody time in dreamshare. But why was Julian still dreaming?

 

"I didn't even know he was taking jobs," Eames responded, feeling shellshocked.

 

"Yeah. Well. He was," Dom muttered, his hands coming up to rub at his face. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

 

"Where's Arthur?" Eames asked, knowing _how is Arthur?_ would have been an unforgivably stupid question.

 

"Home. I haven't told him yet."

 

Eames's heart might have stopped for a second.

 

"He doesn't _know_?" and he thought he might have shouted the question, but he didn't really care.

 

Dom winced.

 

"I got the call. I said I'd tell Arthur. I just…how am I going to do that, Eames?"

 

"I'll do it," he said, without thinking. Then he thought about it and realized it was the right decision.

 

Dom stared up at him, seemingly surprised.

 

"You'd…wait, really?"

 

"It's best if the news comes from me," he said, standing and immediately walking to grab the essentials: his wallet, his apartment keys.

 

The extractor still seemed to be in shock, seated there, staring off into space. He started talking, as if to himself, but Eames knew the narration was for his benefit.

 

"Their team went under and Olof, remember Olof? He worked the corporate gig with us?"

 

Eames paused in his gathering task and nodded.

 

"He stayed up top," Dom swallowed thickly after that, his eyes a little crazy as if imagining it all.

 

"Anyway, it turns out a rival team paid him, flipped him, and when they were under, he walked from person-to-person and shot them." 

 

Dom tapped his temple. 

 

"Right in the head."

 

 _Fuck_.

 

It was one of his worst fears — one of the reasons he refused to work with any point man besides Arthur, whose excellent research skills weeded out rats like that. They were incredibly vulnerable when they slept, and only the most trusted member of a team should be permitted to watch over them. Eames had only ever allowed Arthur to stay up top while he was under.

 

"Too bad Arthur wasn't running point," Eames rasped, feeling only a little bad for making a half-hearted joke at a time like this.

 

Dom seemed to crumble apart a little more.

 

"Arthur did a background check…before Julian left. It came up clean."

 

"Jesus Christ," Eames whispered, not just because he'd only known Arthur to make two mistakes in his entire professional career — missing Fischer's subconscious security and _this_ — but because once Arthur knew, he was never going to forgive himself.

 

He had to leave for New York _now._

 

Watching Eames rush about the apartment, Dom finally seemed to snap out of his daze. Gripping the arm rests of the chair, he stood, squared his shoulders, and looked at the forger. He seemed so much like he did back when he was heading teams that Eames automatically stopped rushing about and looked at him as if expecting an order.

 

"What's the plan, Eames?" Dom asked.

 

Right. A plan. Eames had always been crap with those.

 

"I'm going to take care of Arthur. Then I'm going to kill Olof," he answered simply. Ah, apparently he'd had a plan all along.

 

Dom nodded approvingly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Julian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. This was a tough one to write, obviously because there's so many ~*~feels~*~ but also because I'd genuinely come to love Julian. Thanks for sticking it out with me, kids, and not getting super pissed off. ^.^

Arthur remembered standing in the bathroom, nervously shifting his weight from foot-to-foot as he stared at the pregnancy test. When the little blue cross appeared in the window, he snatched up the plastic stick and obsessively compared it to the image on the back of the box about a million times.

 

Dazed, he eventually walked from the bathroom into the living room where Julian was seated on the couch, fidgeting and biting his thumb. When he saw Arthur, he stood up quickly.

 

"I'm pregnant," Arthur whispered, holding up the stick, which was pretty gross and he shouldn't have been carrying it around, if he stopped to think about it.

 

Julian didn't seem to mind because he crossed the room and swept up Arthur into his arms. The point man started laughing as his Alpha babbled and kissed his face, calling him _my lovely Arthur_. _My lovely, sweet Arthur._

 

Two months in, Arthur lost the baby.

 

He knew something was wrong when he awoke in the middle of the night and his stomach was cramping so badly he could barely breathe.

 

Julian was already awake and stroking his brow, sensing his Omega was in distress.

 

"Something's wrong," Arthur gasped, rolling onto his side and curling up as if that might lessen the pain.

 

Instead, a sharp stabbing pain radiated from his stomach and he cried out.

 

Julian was off the bed in an instant, gathering Arthur in his arms and easily carrying him from the bedroom and down the hallway. Ordinarily, the forger was an extremely strong man, but fearing for Arthur had sent his adrenaline souring, making the point man feel virtually weightless in his arms as he carried him down to the car.

 

Arthur knew what was happening, but he couldn't tell Julian. He didn't want to see the heartbreak on his face. 

 

Luckily, the doctor broke the news for him, saying all the right things about miscarriages being very common, but like everything else, Arthur internalized the blame and held himself responsible. _Something was wrong with him._ He'd been a sick child before he'd joined the army, always catching colds and getting strep throat. Maybe his body couldn't support another life. He remembered standing in a doctor's office when he was young Omega, having his hips measured, and noting the physician's concerned expression as he mumbled, _narrow hips_ …

 

Julian seemed to understand Arthur was spiralling, cataloguing all the ways this might have been his fault, because the moment they returned home, he took him to bed and held him, stroking his stomach in slow, comforting circles. The Alpha kissed his neck and whispered to him.

 

"We can try again…when you're ready."

 

It was so nice to hear something besides _this is normal. It happens to everyone._ Julian knew, beyond being a perfectionist, borderline obsessive, control freak, Arthur was competitive as hell. He'd see this as a gauntlet thrown down by nature, and he would make it his personal mission to conceive and give birth to their cubs. 

 

But first, he needed to fall apart a little bit. 

 

"I wanted it to be easy. Everything has always been so easy with you," he whispered, feeling the tears slide down his cheek and wet the pillow.

 

"I know. Unfortunately, we're going to have lots and lots of sex," Julian rumbled, smiling against his neck.

 

Arthur burst out laughing, feeling so tremendously relieved they were having a normal conversation.

 

***

 

He felt a little lost afterwards. His mind clouded, though the doctor assured him that was just a side effect of his hormones having gone wonky during the early stages of the pregnancy. He was told he'd be _right as rain_ in a few weeks. Sometimes, he'd find himself in a room and not understand how he got there, or he'd be at the refrigerator with the door open, looking inside, and he didn't know what he was looking for.

 

He couldn't sleep and he didn't want to eat. If Julian hadn't taken time off from work to make sure he ate at least a little something every day, he probably would have starved to death. 

 

Arthur lost about ten pounds in a month, and he didn't have ten pounds to lose in the first place.

 

Worse, Julian seemed to be under the impression he would shatter if handled too vigorously. Though he was always willing to be affectionate in small ways — kissing him, holding him — they hadn't had sex since he miscarried. At first, Arthur's confused mind informed him it was because he was tainted now and stunk of death, but eventually his head did clear a bit and he realized Julian was waiting on _him_ to give the all clear.

 

He all but scaled Julian's reclined figure that very night, startling his Alpha enough that the man rolled to the side a bit and flicked on the bedside light.

 

"What're you doing?" he asked, sounding amused, probably because Arthur was in the middle of untying Julian's pajama bottoms.

 

Arthur looked up at him and smiled.

 

"What's it look like?"

 

Julian grasped his hands gently and didn't say anything for a beat, but before he could talk Arthur out of anything, he shimmied off the man's lap and stripped quickly. His Alpha might have been a kind, good man, but he was still warm-blooded. He knew seeing him naked would shatter his self-control.

 

"Arthur, wait," he whispered, grabbing him by the hips when the Omega straddled him again.

 

But Arthur wasn't about to have it. Julian might have meant well, but he was tired of feeling like damaged goods.

 

"No, look," he murmured, grabbing the forger's large hand and bringing it around to his rear. 

 

"Touch me there," Arthur whispered, gasping when he felt Julian's finger tips graze his hole where he was already so hot and wet. 

 

He heard his Alpha's breath hitch and he smiled at him wickedly.

 

"M'not broken," he promised, pushing his hips back a bit, moaning softly when one of his fingers sank into his heat.

 

The sound shattered the last vestiges of Julian's self-control. He picked Arthur up, positioned him carefully, and sank him down onto his cock, drawing a sharp cry from the Omega. He immediately froze, cursing himself for not being more careful, but Arthur was scrambling to grip his shoulders, shaking his head as he gasped.

 

"M'fine. Oh, _fuck_. M'fine. Fuck me, please. Please fuck me, Julian."

 

Arthur found himself in the strange position where — even though he was technically in the power position — he couldn't move. He felt limp for a moment as Julian picked him up and dropped him back down, using his hole, fucking him deep. Julian disappeared, leaving his Alpha in his place. He was all miles of muscle and unrelenting strength, and Arthur was his, totally. Suddenly, he snapped out of it and gripped his mate's shoulders, positioned his feet firmly on the mattress, and fucked him down into the bed.

 

Drawing a surprised cry from an Alpha of Julian's standing did terrible things to Arthur's ego.

 

He arched his back, tossed his head, and put on a show for him, perfectly aware what it was doing to Julian every time he rolled his hips to rub his length against that spot deep inside him.

 

"Oh, fuck," he whined, his voice barely rising above the sound of their skin slapping together.

 

"C'mon. Come for me," Julian growled, his hands bruising Arthur's waist, his hips snapping upward violently.

 

"Ah! Oh, _fuck_!" Arthur cried again before he was coming without touching himself, and Julian paused to spread the droplets all across his stomach and chest. 

 

"Look at me, love," he whispered, and Arthur could only obey. Julian's hands tightened at his waist and he fucked him hard, jostling his near-limp frame atop him before he was growing so big Arthur wanted to cry, and then he was coming endlessly, warming him inside.

 

Arthur didn't remember falling asleep atop his mate, but when he awoke, Julian was still hard inside him. He squirmed reflexively and the man rested his hands at the small of Arthur's back, stilling him.

 

"S'your fault," he slurred sleepily.

 

"Oh, is that right?" Arthur murmured, his cheek pressed to Julian's chest.

 

"Mhm. You molested me."

 

"You're a tease. Walking around for _weeks_ without touching me."

 

Though he was joking, Julian seemed to take that to heart. He rubbed gently at Arthur's back. When his hands stilled, Arthur thought he'd fallen asleep, but then his rich baritone filled his ears again.

 

"M'going to work this job coming up. It pays well, but afterwards I want to take the money and buy a house outside of the city."

 

Arthur picked up his head and looked at him. Julian rolled his head a bit and lowered his chin so they were looking directly at each other.

 

"Something with three bedrooms. For the cubs," he clarified, and for some reason, it made Arthur's heart clench that nothing had changed between them. Julian was still confident they'd have a family.

 

All these weeks, he'd thought Julian was growing distant from him, but he'd really been _planning for their future_.

 

"Three, huh?" he asked, afraid if he said anything else, he'd start to cry.

 

Julian looked thoughtful for a second.

 

"Maybe four if you keep jumping me like this," he amended, grinning down at Arthur.

 

He smiled and leaned up, nuzzling at the stubble on Julian's cheek before they kissed softly. When he softened enough for them to separate, Arthur remained sprawled out atop the Alpha, who plucked a few tissues from the bedside table and cleaned them off as best he could. He then balled up the tissues and tossed them on the table before pulling the blanket up to cover them both.

 

"That's disgusting," Arthur noted at the same time he nuzzled Julian's broad chest and got cozy. He loved sleeping like this after sex, feeling his mate everywhere without being crushed into the mattress. 

 

He very nearly dozed off before a thought occurred to him. _Three cubs._

 

"M'getting old," he whispered, part of him hoping Julian had already nodded off because what was lurking on the periphery of his mind was a disturbing thought.

 

"Nonsense," Julian, unfortunately, responded immediately.

 

"No, I am," he sighed, picking up his head to point at his face. "See these?" he asked, gesturing to his crow's feet.  

 

Julian furrowed his brow and looked at his face, clearly failing to see what he was talking about. 

 

"Well, they're easier to see when I smile," Arthur sighed, deciding to use the direct approach. "What if I can't have babies?"

 

He carefully watched Julian's face, looking for the telltale signs of distress and crushing disappointment, but instead his mate looked curiously calm. He shrugged his broad shoulders a bit.

 

"We could adopt," he said lightly.

 

That's the moment Arthur understood — when his dumb brain finally caught up to his wonderful life. Julian wasn't obsessed with the idea of breeding. He simply wanted to build a future with Arthur, and for him, that idyllic imagery included children. Arthur didn't trust himself to speak, so he leaned forward to kiss Julian.

 

"I love you, you know," his Alpha whispered when they parted.

 

Arthur was never good with words, so he kissed him again, hoping he understood that Arthur _did_ know that, and that he would love him forever in return.

 

***

 

Naturally, he had insisted on researching the team Julian would be joining in Germany. Arthur already knew everyone, but it couldn't hurt to be extra careful. 

 

"Did you know Olof just worked a job in Germany?" he asked, taking a sip of coffee and setting it back down on the table. He had his legs folded before him on the bed as he watched Julian pack his suitcase, shirts and pants strewn across the bed as he decided what to bring.

 

"So?"

 

"So he's really burning the candle at both ends if he's doing a job this soon again. Just watch him. He may be tired and fuck up— don't bring those pants. I hate those. Where are your Hugo Boss ones?"

 

Julian frowned at the pants he was holding.

 

"What's wrong with these?"

 

"They make you look insane. Where are the-here, these. These make your ass look great."

 

Arthur held out the correct sartorial choice, and Julian reached past the pants to grip his wrist and drag him forward slightly.

 

"Oh yeah?" Julian asked, now sounding amused.

 

"Yes," Arthur whispered, moving closer to kiss him.

 

***

 

"Don't forget to lock the door behind me." Julian mumbled, distracted as he patted his suit jacket, checking for his passport and wallet.

 

Arthur restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Sometimes, Julian really couldn't turn off the Alpha part of his brain — as if _Arthur,_ the most capable point man in all of dreamshare, would be taken down by  someone as incidental as a home invader. 

 

"Oh, and water the ficus while I'm away," he added, glancing in the direction of the poor half-dead plant in the kitchen that had been Arthur's responsibility. He sincerely hoped their future children were the independent type.

 

"Got it," Arthur responded. "Call me when you land."

 

"I will," Julian said, not having time to draw things out. His car was waiting downstairs.

 

The forger left his bag at the door and stepped forward, cupping Arthur's face and tilting it back gently. His brow furrowed as he looked him over.

 

"What?" Arthur asked, grinning.

 

"I'm trying to see these lines you're talking about," he chuckled, leaning down to kiss him.

 

"Jackass," Arthur responded.

 

"You're gorgeous," Julian continued, unthwarted by Arthur's insult, winding his arms around him to hold his mate close.

 

"I hate you," Arthur teased, still smiling, pretending to put up a bit of a fight.

 

"Nah, you love me," Julian purred, stealing Arthur's retort when he kissed him, probably longer than he should have considering the car was waiting, but this was the first time they'd be separated since they were mated, and Julian didn't like the idea of leaving him.

 

"I do," Arthur confirmed, smiling, gripping the lapels of Julian's jacket and inhaling his scent deeply.

 

The forger glanced at his watch then and sighed.

 

"This driver is going to kill me."

 

"I know. Get going. Remember to call me."

 

"Will do. Lock the door."

 

"Jesus, Julian. Yes. The door. I understand."

 

"Bye, love."

 

"Bye."

 

***

Julian called right before he was heading to bed.

 

"How is it?"

 

"A bloody mess. Already."

 

Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, his stomach in knots. He knew he should have gone with him, but Julian wouldn't even consider that possibility.

 

"You should come home."

 

"Nah, it's nothing too dire. Just a bunch of thick idiots bickering. I'll be home in a week."

 

Arthur stared at his bare feet on the hardwood floor.

 

"Okay. Be careful. Watch Olof."

 

"Will do. Remember to eat the meals I left and water the ficus."

 

 _Shit. The ficus._ He stood up, walked to the kitchen, and plucked a glass from the shelf to fill it with water.

 

"Okay, I'm doing it now." 

 

He could hear Julian chuckling fondly on the other end of the phone as he poured the water into the pot.

 

"I miss you," the forger sighed.

 

"That's what you get for leaving me here."

 

He laughed again.

 

"True."

 

"Go sleep," he suggested softly, hearing the fatigue in his mate's voice.

 

"Yeah, I should. Long day tomorrow. I'll call when I can."

 

"Bye."

 

"Bye, love."

 

 

 

That was the last time Arthur heard his voice.

 

***

 

When Julian didn't call the next day as he promised, Arthur was worried, but he tried not to let the dumb Omega part of his brain take over. Thinking like a point man, he considered the possibilities. They might have been made and Julian had to flee quickly, hopping on a plane back to New York. Maybe it wasn't _safe_ for him to return home, so he was laying low, afraid to use a phone lest it give away his location.

 

A cold feeling of dread crept over him after the second day without a phone call from Julian. Something was very wrong. There was no way his mate would have gone this long without contacting him unless the job had turned disastrous.

 

He took the dramatic step of calling Julian and then the cellphones of Julian's team members. No one answered and Olof's phone had been disconnected.

 

Arthur could feel himself panicking as he called Dom, and he told himself to breathe in time with the ring on the other end. Finally, mercifully, someone picked up.

 

"Hello, Cobb residence. Phillipa speaking. How may I help you?" Dom's eldest child answered, exactly as her father had been teaching her.

 

"Phillipa, honey. It's Uncle Arthur. How are you?"

 

"Uncle Arthur!" she shrieked, immediately forgetting her training as a formal, serious child.

 

"I'm learning piano!" she said, practically beaming through the phone. Whenever Arthur visited them in California, he would sit beside her at the piano and play show tunes, and she'd been learning her favorite pieces now that she was old enough.

 

"Wow, really? That's awesome. I can't wait to hear it. Listen, is your dad home?"

 

"No, he's travelling."

 

"Know where he went this time?"

 

"Um, Africa to see Uncle Eames."

 

 _What the hell_? 

 

"There are lions in Africa," Phillipa chirped happily, obliviously continuing their conversation.

 

Arthur's brain was whirling rapidly. Why the hell was Dom visiting Eames? It's not like the two were chummy. In fact, outside of working situations where they were in a room together separated by Arthur, he couldn't think of a single social situation in which the two men had hung out _alone_.

 

"When did he leave?"

 

"Um. I don't remember. My last day of school."

 

"This week?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"So Friday?"

 

"Uh-huh."

 

That meant Dom had been gone _three entire days._

 

"Okay, thanks, honey. I gotta run, but I'll visit soon, okay?"

 

***

 

Arthur had no idea what was going on, but something in his gut told him that Dom's visit with Eames was related to Julian not calling him. He'd just pulled a duffle bag from under the bed and was throwing clothing inside it haphazardly when there was a knock at the door.

 

Reflexively, he grabbed his gun from the drawer beside the bed and checked to make sure it was loaded. He walked down the hallway stealthily, keeping his footsteps silent. Then he braced himself against the wall by the door incase whoever was on the other side started shooting.

 

"Who is it?" he barked, his voice steady as it left him.

 

"Me," said the last person in the world he'd been expecting.

 

Arthur clicked the gun's safety on, shoved it down the back of his pants, and tore open the door. Eames stood there, looking positively ancient, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned almost to his chest, his hair in disarray. There were bags under his reddened eyes and what looked like three days of stubble on his face.

 

"Hello, darling. Can I come in?" he asked, his voice completely lacking its usual sparkle and shimmer. He sounded like the time he and Dom freed him from a basement cell in Egypt where he'd been tortured for three weeks.

 

Suddenly feeling numb, Arthur stepped aside and gestured with his hand. Eames wandered inside, closed the door behind himself, and then looked unsure of what he should do next.

 

"Um, why don't you sit down?"

 

"No," Arthur said quickly. "Tell me what's wrong."

 

He'd never seen the forger less sure of himself, and that terrified him. Whatever had happened, it was bad. Then he thought of Dom. _Oh God. Dom was dead. Julian and him were going to have to raise Phillipa and James_.

 

"Dom?" he asked, his throat completely dry.

 

"No, darling," Eames said, softly, like he thought Arthur would break apart at the sound of his voice.

 

His eyes flitted back and forth, trying to read the man's face. When he'd seen the grief in the forger's eyes, he'd assumed it was for Dom. No, Eames and the extractor had never been particularly close, but they'd known each other for ages, and he knew Eames secretly respected the hell out of the man. Eames would have grieved Dom because he would have been mourning the loss of the world's best extractor. 

 

_Why else would he look this wrecked?_

 

And then realization dawned upon him. Eames was grieving for _him_. Because-

 

"No," he said reflexively, backing away from Eames like if he avoided the man, he could forever outrun reality.

 

Eames was extending his hands, speaking softly like he was trying to calm a spooked horse.

 

"Darling, please, come here. Sit, why don't you?"

 

"No, Eames. Please. _Please_ ," he moaned, possessed by the crazy notion that if he begged none of this would be real.

 

His legs must have given out because Eames caught him, lowering them both to the floor, and gripped him even when the point man began to buck and punch him furiously, Arthur unaware he was crying and _screaming_ at him.

 

Eames didn't respond. He just took it until he couldn't anymore and then he grabbed Arthur by the wrists and pinned his arms to his side, allowing the Omega to sob against his chest.

 

Arthur cried until his voice gave out and he laid there, draped against Eames, weak and dehydrated.

 

It was silent as the grave for a long time.

 

Then Eames spoke.

 

"I'm going to take care of you," he whispered, sounding sure and confident like his old self.

 

Arthur couldn't even begin to understand what he meant by that.

 

"Then I'm going to kill Olof," he said.

 

_Olof. Of course, it had been Olof._

 

"I'm going with you," he rasped.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stages of grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy feels in this chapter, kiddies. I promise things will get better, and there will even be more smut soon!

If he was to be completely honest, Eames would say he'd just been humoring Arthur when the point man in the haze of grief said he wanted to hunt down Olof with him.

 

"Of course, pet," he reassured, rubbing the expanse of the Omega's back.

 

Like _hell_ he'd be letting Arthur go anywhere near Olof, but there was no reason to drop that bit of bad news at Arthur's doorstep along with word of his dead husband.

 

"Come here. Let's get you up. That's it," he fumbled for a moment until he had Arthur in his arms, bridle style.

 

It was a testament to how wrecked the point man felt that he said nothing as Eames carried him like a baby to the couch and gently laid him down. Eames swiftly walked into the kitchen, banged around for a bit looking for the cabinet with the cups, and then filled a glass with water. When he returned to Arthur, the man was staring blankly across the room, his head reclined on the armrest. 

 

"Sit up a bit, darling. Just like that," he whispered encouragingly, sitting toward the end of the couch so Arthur could slump back against him.

 

He handed Arthur the glass, and after staring at it for a few moments, he began to drink in deep, desperate gulps. Eames wondered when he'd last drank anything. When he finished, he stared down at the empty cup, twirling it idly in his hand. Eames peered over his shoulder at the man's profile, and he could see Arthur was still crying, but quietly, like he'd run out of too much steam to verbalize his pain.

 

Eames was just beginning to wonder what the hell the next step was when Arthur decided for him. His voice was soft and shaky, but their close proximity allowed Eames to hear every word.

 

"Do you remember when we met?"

 

It was a bit of a cryptic question — of course Eames remembered it quite vividly, but he was so relieved to hear Arthur speaking that he was willing to play along, wherever this was headed.

 

"Of course. Mal's lab. You were sleeping and I came over, you woke up, and were instantly hostile toward me."

 

He'd hoped that would earn him a little smile, but Arthur was still looking at his empty glass, seeming as though he might not have registered the forger's words.

 

"That seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?" he asked weakly, turning enough so he could look Eames in the face.

 

"It was a very long time ago, yes," he affirmed, reaching down to take the glass from Arthur and set it aside on the table.

 

"I feel like a totally different person, don't you?"

 

 _Not really_ , Eames thought. For the first time ever, he wondered if that was a bad thing.

 

"I think you're the same," the forger commented softly, laying his hand over Arthur's and squeezing it gently.

 

"I don't feel it," Arthur responded, his gaze dropping to where their fingers were laced.

 

"I feel…worn out. I don't want to do this anymore, Eames. Neither did Julian. We were going to retire."

 

Something clicked in Eames's head. _Of course_. That was why Julian took the job — one last big score before they officially checked out. The realization unexpectedly devastated him, but he couldn't articulate it. He didn't want to do that to Arthur.

 

"Sometimes I feel it catching up to me," he confessed, deciding if there was one person he could be perfectly candid with, it was the point man. 

 

Eames always had to put on airs with the next, newest generation of dreamers. These young pups would emerge from the ether, sucking up all the oxygen, treating him like he didn't _get_ whatever new dreaming theory was circulating at the moment — like he hadn't practically invented the goddamn art of forging itself. But with Arthur, he could show his scars and aching bones.

 

Arthur shifted a bit so he could look at him, waiting for Eames to elaborate.

 

"I went on a bender with Yusuf a few weeks ago, and when I woke up, I felt like I was a thousand years old," he said, wincing a bit at the memory.

 

Arthur looked like he was going to say something, and Eames prayed it would be razor sharp and witty and a little cruel, but then he could pinpoint the exact moment the weight of reality slammed into him. The point man's face crumbled and he gasped aloud suddenly.

 

"Oh, fuck. His body. Where is it?"

 

Eames gripped his hand firmly. Thankfully, he and Dom were able to sort out at least a few things before he'd left for the airport.

 

"Dom will handle it. We'll sort all of that out, darling."

 

"Because his parents…they'll want a funeral," Arthur said, being perfectly logical and crying at the same time, his voice only wavering a little.

 

"There will be a funeral," he agreed, trying to indicate with his tone that this would all be handled and behind them eventually.

 

They were quiet again, the massive, immovable reality of Julian being dead blocking any chance of a normal conversation. It felt ridiculous to talk about anything other than Arthur's husband being gone — murdered in the worst possible way for a dreamer. He found himself wondering what the job had been — about the last image Julian saw before Olof blasted a bullet straight into him, obliterating his mind. He wondered if the other forger saw a projection of Arthur before he died.

 

Eames felt his throat tighten and instantly scolded himself. He was absolutely not, under any circumstances, to lose control of himself while Arthur was falling apart, utterly devastated. But the forger found himself experiencing a rare moment of empathy. Julian had loved Arthur more than anything. Eames could understand that.

 

"I can't believe he's gone," Arthur said eventually.

 

The only other time Eames had seen him in a state like this was when Mal killed herself. Arthur had been sobbing into his chest, saying _she left me, she left me_ over and over. He had never pretended to understand their relationship — Eames generally tried to steer clear of anchors like that because their line of work was so dangerous, and close associates were bound to bite the dust sooner or later, but now he thought he understood a little better. He'd made intimate connections during his forty years on the planet — collateral damage of being human, he supposed. He had friends now, people who might even cry at his funeral one day. 

 

Macabrely, he wondered if Arthur would cry.

 

Angry with himself, he quickly squashed the selfish thought.

 

***

 

It only seemed logical to move in with Arthur — just until everything was sorted — and no one, not even Dom, accused Eames of being inappropriate so he assumed he was doing the right thing. He brought a small bag of clothing and toiletries so as to not look creepy or presumptuous and parked himself on the couch. Then, he started sorting everything: switching the utilities back to Arthur's name, convincing the bank to drop Julian from the account with a healthy dose of charm and a fax of the death certificate, and of course arranging the funeral.

 

It occurred to him that in another time, in a different place, he would have taken advantage of a mark like Arthur: grieving, so trusting, and alone. He could have emptied his entire bank account of every last penny and skipped down, leaving this responsibility business to the grown-ups. 

 

Impulsively, the thought entered his mind and he felt sick.

 

Arthur seemed to hold himself together until after the funeral, and then he completely fell apart, remaining in bed for almost entire days at a time. Eames told himself this was normal — part of the grieving process. Though, he'd had a single, real scare in which he seriously feared for Arthur's sanity when he entered the bedroom to ask if the point man was hungry, and the Omega had called him by Julian's name. For a terrible moment, he thought of Mal and wondered if Arthur was losing his grip on reality.

 

However, realization soon dawned across Arthur's face and he curled into himself to muffle his cries. Eames sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his back gently, wondering if he was a terrible person for feeling relieved.

 

After a month, Eames decided it was time to formulate some rules. Like all military men, Arthur was a creature of structure, so the forger gambled he was more likely to get a positive reaction than a punch in the face when he proposed a daily checklist:

 

1) Arthur must be out of bed by 11 A.M.

2) He must bathe every day

3) Arthur must eat three times a day

4) Water the ficus

5) Go for an afternoon walk with Eames around the block

6) Donate Julian's things to Goodwill

 

For the most part, Arthur responded well to the list, except for the last item, which of course was bloody Dom's idea. Julian's things were everywhere — the apartment was virtually busting with the man's presence, and the amateur psychologist in Dom thought it would be "cleansing" — really, he actually used that word — for Arthur if they were to rid his environment of the memory of his mate.

 

Arthur had a total meltdown the first time Dom showed up with empty boxes.

 

Eames was picking up some groceries at the time and returned to a war zone. The point man was shouting at Dom, who looked completely stunned — understandable given Arthur had never once lost his temper at Dom, not even when he nearly sent them all spiralling into limbo.

 

"He's trying to take everything!" Arthur shouted, pointing accusingly at the extractor.

 

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just helping you organize things," Dom responded helplessly, holding what looked like a stuffed bunny rabbit.

 

Furious, Arthur stormed over to him and yanked the doll from his grasp, then started gesturing angrily with it, the bunny's ears flopping about.

 

"You all want me to just move on and _forget_ so I stop _inconveniencing_ you!" 

 

Eames winced. It was closer to the truth than he probably knew. Earlier in the week, Dom had privately complained to him over the phone that he couldn't keep flying out to New York to help Arthur — that he didn't want to keep leaving his children with a babysitter.

 

So it was true in Dom's case, but not in his own.

 

"Oi," he interrupted calmly, cradling the bag against his hip. "You're not _inconveniencing_ us, Arthur. Keep everything, throw everything out, do what you like. We just want you to be happy," he said, making eye contact with Dom, trying to express with his eyes that if he was smart the extractor would simply agree with that statement.

 

"Yes, exactly," Dom added because he was always a quick learner.

 

Arthur was eyeing them both suspiciously, but he seem placated for the moment, though he turned and stormed back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Dom sighed exasperatedly and set the empty box on the floor.

 

"Look, I can't get through to him, but he can't live in here like it' s a tomb. I thought he was going to murder me when I opened Julian's closet."

 

"Easy, mate. It's only been a month," Eames said defensively because Arthur had been making great progress with everything else on the list. 

 

He didn't spend all day in bed anymore, he showered every day, and he went for afternoon walks with Eames. Sure, the forger ended up watering the ficus, but that was forgivable. He walked into the kitchen and set the bag of groceries on the table. As he began sorting through the food items, he became aware of Dom standing in the doorway, watching him.

 

Eames looked up and raised his brows expectantly. 

 

Dom sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, a clear indication that he wasn't sure how to proceed.

 

"Eames, I think it's terrific you've been staying here and helping and everything…"

 

The forger set down a can of chickpeas and turned to face him.

 

"Except?"

 

"I don't want you to labor under false assumptions."

 

"What the bloody hell does that mean?"

 

At some point, Eames had made the transition from confused to angry. Dom appeared to be making all kinds of _assumptions_ himself about why Eames was helping out.

 

"Don't get angry. Look, Arthur…I don't know if he's ever going to get over this," he said, his voice lowered, but the raw fear still evident.

 

They'd both been thinking it for a while, but the extractor laid it out bare. Arthur was changed forever, and Eames had hitched himself to his falling star. Dom was giving him an out — a way to ride into the sunset while still looking like the good guy who toughed it out while Arthur was having his meltdown. He could leave now with a relatively clear conscience and continue his life of boozing and gambling and sex with anonymous, beautiful strangers.

 

But he wouldn't have Arthur.

 

Bruised and broken, he was still his Arthur. 

 

"I know," he responded simply. 

 

Though he was never formally educated — he had forged certificates from the top universities in the world — Eames liked to think he was quick on the uptake. The first time he left Arthur, he lost him. Eames wasn't going to make the same mistake again. He'd seen what laid beyond the horizon, and he'd tasted, drank, and fucked it all. What had been missing the whole time was Arthur.

 

***

An unintended side effect of living with Arthur was that Eames had stopped drinking and gambling. He was an absolute wreck as a result, and so he started smoking more — on the balcony, naturally, since Arthur would have a total conniption if he ever smelled smoke in his fine linens and silky things.

 

Other than being a bit jittery though, Eames had to admit he felt better. He'd lost a stone, his skin looked clearer, and his face seemed less puffy. 

 

"Truthfully, and don't take this the wrong way, old boy, you're the absolute last person I'd want comforting me."

 

Eames stopped blowing smoke rings and tighten his grip on the cell phone.

 

"Oi, fuck off. I happen to be doing a stellar job."

 

"Yeah? So I assume Arthur has started to part from the late Mr. Fontaine's possessions?"

 

It was still odd to hear Julian's last name. The first time he'd heard it had been at the funeral, and his first thought had been _Arthur's name is Arthur Fontaine now_. He hadn't worked up the courage to ask the point man if he'd be keeping the title or going back to _Arthur Levine_.

 

"Yes," Eames lied, flicking his half-smoked cigarette off the balcony. 

 

When he was sober, he found he couldn't suck them down like he used to. 

 

"You're full of it," Yusuf responded.

 

"Why would I be the last person you'd want?"

 

"Well, for starters, you'd steal anything that wasn't nailed down."

 

"Besides that."

 

Yusuf paused and sighed dramatically.

 

"You never struck me as the nurturing type, I suppose."

 

Eames had to grant him that point. He _wasn't_ the nurturing type. He was the _bail before things get messy_ type. Except, here he was now, in the thick of the messiest situation imaginable. 

 

***

After he washed his hands, brushed his teeth, rinsed with mouthwash, and changed his clothes, he knocked on Arthur's door, waited for the "come in," and walked inside his bedroom.

 

The Omega was laid across the bedspread, technically not breaking their rule because he'd been up earlier, showered, and dressed, and was now simply relaxing reading a book. Eames decided he'd let it slide.

 

Arthur took one look at him and his nostrils flared a bit.

 

"You were smoking."

 

Eames gaped at him and Arthur rolled his eyes.

 

"You can't just _wash away_ the smell, Eames. It lingers. You should quit. You're too old to still being do that shit."

 

Eames couldn't even be offended at the accusation that he'd been ageing along with the rest of the human race because Arthur had insulted him, just like in the good old days. Instead, he perched on the edge of the bed and looked around the room. Dom had been right about one thing — Arthur was turning the apartment into a tomb. All of Julian's possessions rested exactly where they had the day he left for his doomed trip to Germany. The items on the bedroom bureau were even beginning to gather dust, and still Arthur hadn't moved them — highly suspect given the point man's aversion to all things grit. 

 

It had been three months since Julian's death, and still his cufflinks rested on the bedside table and his glasses remained neatly folded beside them.

 

"Darling, I need to speak with you," Eames said, folding his leg so he could turn and face him.

 

Seeming to sense this was heading in an unpleasant direction, Arthur kept his gaze fixated to his book and kept his tone carefully neutral.

 

"Oh?"

 

"It's about Julian's things."

 

He watched Arthur's shoulders tense.

 

"What about his _things_?" he asked, and he really might as well have hissed that last word.

 

"I think it would be a good idea to part with some of them."

 

Arthur slammed his book shut and threw it aside, levelling the forger with one of his infamous scowls.

 

"So you agree with Dom, then. You want me to get rid of him piece-by-piece."

 

"No," Eames said quickly, holding up his hand, hoping that would stop Arthur from completely unloading on him.

 

"That's not what I said. Just certain things, Arthur. I thought maybe we could do one item every day—"

 

"Until he's gone, you mean."

 

"No, you can keep five things."

 

"Who're you to make all these stupid rules?" Arthur cried suddenly.

 

He'd been doing that lately — exploding with anger unpredictably — shouting and throwing things, sometimes at Eames. The forger wasn't used to the abuse. If anyone treated him that way in the past, he would have broken their nose or walked, but in this case he didn't want to do either of those things. Instead, he was learning to pause, take a deep breath, and counter Arthur's fury with a calm, measured tone.

 

"Have they, or have they not, been working?"

 

"What do you mean?" Arthur seethed.

 

"My stupid rules. Have they not been working?"

 

Arthur huffed then, crossing his arms over his chest, and Eames knew he'd won that round. Even the point man understood he'd been an absolute mess after Julian died — still was, in my ways. But he understood progress in the shape of tiny victories like getting out of bed and bathing. Arthur had always been a fan of lists and clear goals.

 

He gazed around the room warily, as if seeing it with fresh eyes.

 

"Just one item?" he asked softly.

 

"Yes, darling," Eames responded, feeling a surge of hope.

 

He watched Arthur climb from the bed and slowly approach Julian's closet. The forger found himself holding his breath, afraid to make any sudden movements as though Arthur might startle like a frightened doe. When he opened the doors, Eames could smell the musk from across the room — a pure concentration of Alpha scent centralized where all of Julian's clothing resided. No wonder Arthur hadn't opened those doors. If his Alpha nose was going mad at the sensation, he couldn't imagine what it was doing to Arthur.

 

Eames warily gazed at the back of Arthur's dark head, wondering what his expression was in that moment.

 

"Just one," he repeated softly, reaching forward to touch the various shirts, sweaters, and slacks.

 

After what felt like ages, he finally selected a pair of pleated pants that looked quite fetching to Eames from where he was seated. Arthur closed the closet doors and wandered back to the bed, clutching the material between his hands.

 

"You can take these," he murmured, gazing down at them.

 

"I hated these. He nearly took them to Germany, but I stopped him."

 

 _Of course Arthur did_.

 

"Excellent. A good choice, then," the forger responded, reaching to take them, but Arthur wouldn't relinquish his grip.

 

He sighed and pried the Omega's fingers open as gently as possible.

 

"There's a lad. Good. Cheers," he said, finally freeing the pants and standing.

 

Arthur watched him the whole time, then looked to the pants, and the bureau, and then the closet. Eames automatically knew what he was thinking: _one item a day — for how long?_

 

"Eames," Arthur said, sounding so unsure.

 

"This was good. This was a good day," he reassured him, folding the pants and tucking them beneath his arm.

 

Arthur didn't look like he was buying it, though. He appeared as he always did when he felt like he wasn't up to snuff — falling behind and letting the whole team down. Just when Eames thought he was turning into himself as he so often did these days, the point man spoke again.

 

"Eames, this is going to take forever."

 

He was alluding to the clothing, but Eames knew better. Arthur meant everything.

 

"I'm not going anywhere, darling."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur breaks the cycle and gets into a fight with Eames.
> 
> Arthur & Eames POV
> 
> Apologies for lack of action in this one, but I wanted to realistically portray Arthur's grief. I promise, more action is on the way!

Arthur wasn't stupid. He was aware everyone in his life —the people who'd bothered to hang around and withstand the brunt of his sorrow— were handling him with kid gloves. Dom practically spoke to him like a mental patient over the phone, and Ariadne constantly sounded like she was about to burst into tears whenever they engaged in brief life updates.

 

Eames was coping with everything by making lists for him, and yes the short term goals had been helping ensure his immediate survival, but the idea that showering every day was some great achievement for Arthur was depressing as hell.

 

He was tired of everyone looking at him like he was some tragic life lesson — something about better to have loved and lost than to blah blah blah.

 

Somehow, they'd fallen into a routine where Eames was suddenly living with him. Arthur couldn't object because he noticed the lights and water were still running and the rent was somehow getting paid, not to mention the bathroom and kitchen were spotless, and there were always meals waiting for him in the refrigerator when his stomach started rumbling. In a relatively hands-off way, Eames was keeping his life moving forward, and Arthur couldn't deny it was nice, for once, to switch his brain off and let someone else call the shots.

 

He never saw the forger cooking or cleaning because he had relocated himself to the bedroom where he read most of the day since Eames made a ridiculous rule about having to be up and dressed by 11 A.M. No more sleeping all day. The only time he left the room was to eat, shower, or go for a walk with Eames, which they usually did in silence, but sometimes —very rarely— they'd talk about the old days or dream theories.

 

It had not escaped his attention that Eames had artfully avoided the topic of Olof and his plans for vengeance. But occasionally Arthur would slip out of the bedroom and be padding towards the bathroom when he'd hear the man whisper something into his cellphone and then quickly flip it shut. He knew Eames was planning something — most likely hunting down leads and tracking Olof to keep tabs on him until he decided to strike.

 

It had been six months since Olof killed Julian, and he had to admit it was smart to wait and not be too hasty before they eventually attacked. He also knew Eames was going to do his damnedest to go alone, but Arthur wouldn't allow that to happen. He wanted to be there. He wanted to wrap his fingers around Olof's throat and feel the life drain from his body, but not before he strapped the traitor to a chair and removes his eyeballs with a corkscrew. 

 

Before any of that could happen, though, Arthur had to get himself sorted, and he couldn't do that while he was still wrapped in a cocoon of Julian. He'd realized he would happily stay nestled in their bed forever, until he died, unless he broke the cycle by doing something drastic. Unfortunately, he realized that meant adhering to Eames's stupid rules. Rather, it meant _modifying_ the rules slightly.

 

"You're sure?" Eames asked, standing before Julian's closet, gripping an empty garbage bag.

 

After the funeral, Julian's parents had delivered a book to Arthur about grieving for Omegas. At first, Arthur had wanted to roll his eyes at the self help book, but when he eventually got around to reading it months later, he discovered it was actually rather informative. The book informed him, or rather author Dr. Heather Shaw informed him, that in some cases Omegas had been known to die from grief after their mates perished. Horrified, he read the warning signs, all of which he'd been experiencing: enormous fatigue, lack of appetite, violent mood swings.

 

It had scared him enough that Arthur decided he needed to do something dramatic.

 

Arthur nodded in response to the question as he slowly leafed through the garments and ran his fingers over the fabrics, shadows of memories flitting across his brain as he remembered his husband dressed in a certain shirt — seated on their couch watching television — another pair of pants, legs crossed, doing the Sunday crossword.

 

"One item a day will take too long. I know the five things I'm keeping," he responded eventually, pausing to glance at Eames.

 

The forger nodded and rustled the bag as he moved to pull it open, indicating Arthur could begin whenever.

 

"Right, then."

 

He took a breath and started pulling shirts from their hangers, stuffing them into the bag without looking. He had to do this fast or he was never going to do it. _Like a bandaid._ Somehow, it seemed to take an eternity and also be over in a heartbeat. They filled two large garbage bags with Julian's clothes — all of them, except two items — the burgundy shirt Julian had worn on their first date and a grey fleece hoodie Arthur loved to wear because it swam on him and the Alpha's scent clung to the fabric. He liked wearing it at night, wrapping it around himself and breathing in the smell until he fell asleep.

 

The other three items he'd decided to keep were Julian's glasses, his gold cufflinks, and a small digital video camera.

 

Eames didn't ask questions about any of the items they pooled and placed on the bureau after the forger had emptied and dusted it. He also, thankfully, didn't patronize Arthur by saying he'd been brave or bold. They worked in silence and then Eames took the bags down to his rental car and delivered them to Goodwill. While he was gone, Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and tried very hard not to have a panic attack. He reminded himself he'd done the right thing — the thing Julian would have wanted, even. The Alpha would have been heartbroken if he'd seen what became of Arthur after his death.

 

As usual, he had to chase away certain thoughts: that it would have been better if he'd gone to Germany with Julian and died with him, that he always had the option right now to stop fighting and simply succumb to his grief. If he closed his eyes and willed it, perhaps he could stop his heart from beating. 

 

But no, he couldn't do that. He couldn't make that choice knowing how it would destroy Dom and his godchildren, not to mention what it would do to poor Eames, his oldest friend.

 

Everyone, including his dead husband, would want him to fight. The reminder didn't help, though, so instead he slid on the hoodie, closed and locked the door, laid down on the bed, and turned on the video camera. 

 

It had started as a silly little game between Julian and him — one of them had suggested making a sex tape, and the other had been too proud to cry mercy, so they'd ended up actually doing it. Mind you, it wasn't a real sex tape. Some (read: Eames) would probably mock it as ridiculously prudish and boring because it only showed them from the chest up and they kissed for ages before there was any action. Arthur remembered scrambling for the camera when they'd been necking, just barely getting it to balance on the bedside table. 

 

He loved the video. Even though it really didn't show anything graphic, he was fascinated by the adoration between them so clearly evident as they kissed and touched, and then he always went a little breathless when he watched his own face enveloped with rapture as Julian, off screen, finally pushed into him. He forgot what that felt like now, and Julian had only been gone six months.

 

Usually, he watched it on mute, but since Eames was gone, he turned the volume up slightly so he could hear their panting and soft moans.

 

He had to stop the video when he heard Julian's voice repeating over and over _I love you, I love you, Arthur, I love you_.

 

Arthur knew he should delete it. He should destroy the camera, throw it off the balcony or something, but he couldn't. He couldn't let that go just yet.

 

Instead, he pulled the hood over his head, wrapped the hoodie tightly around himself, and went to sleep.

 

***

 

In retrospect, it was really amazing they hadn't started fighting sooner. 

 

It all started when Arthur began venturing out of the bedroom more regularly, motivated to lounge in other parts of the apartment since his room no longer smelled overwhelmingly of Julian.

 

"How much progress have you made tracking Olof?" he asked abruptly one afternoon, his arms crossed as he stood before Eames, who was sprawled across the couch with his ankles crossed while he read the newspaper.

 

Eames clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and slowly turned the page before he shook out the paper and looked up at Arthur.

 

"Not much, I'm afraid," he replied airily.

 

Arthur's jaw twitched and he furrowed his brow into a scowl. The forger was lying _to his face_. 

 

"Bullshit. You know exactly where he is and you plan to  go by yourself."

 

"Darling, I'm sure I don't know _what_ you're talking about."

 

"This is such bullshit. You remember I'm the greatest researcher in our field, right? I can just turn on my laptop and find him in ten minutes."

 

That seemed to get his attention. Eames neatly closed the newspaper, creased the seam, folded it, and set it beside him on the couch as he swung his legs around. Sitting upright, he leaned his elbows on his thighs and stared up at Arthur, transforming from slothful to fiercely focused in a split second.

 

"No. You _were_ the greatest researcher in the field. Now, you're the bloke I cook and clean for because he's too bloody loony to do it himself."

 

If Arthur had been more clearheaded, he probably would have immediately recognized the comment as a diversion tactic. Eames wanted him to feel inadequate as a point man and researcher so he wouldn't go snooping into matters that could ultimately get him killed. But in the heat of the moment, it seemed like the forger was simply being  a dick and Arthur had zero tolerance for it.

 

"I have an idea. Why don't you stop mooching off me and get the hell out of my apartment?" Arthur spat, grabbing the newspaper off the couch just to be extra spiteful before he stormed back into the bedroom.

 

"Glad to!" he heard Eames shout, then angry footsteps and the sound of the door slamming behind him.

 

***

 

" _Mooching…_ bloody _mooching_ ," Eames muttered to himself miserably as he sat at the bar, properly ripped out of his gourd on booze. 

 

Arthur Levine, or Fontaine, or whatever had some bloody nerve. Here he'd been sweating and toiling for _six long months_ , bending over backwards to help the point man get on his feet, and how was he thanked? By being called a bloody buggering _mooch_. The nerve. The absolute gall.

 

Eames ordered another scotch. 

 

He was sober —well, had _been_ sober— wasn't even gambling, _stopped bloody smoking_ too, and to top things off, he was even eating that terrible organic crap Arthur preferred with no wonderful salt or trans fats because he was just trying to be a love about the whole thing. And this is how he's thanked. Tossed out on his ear like vermin. 

 

He hadn't been having sex either — not even going out for quickies because he'd been so concerned Arthur would need him and not have the presence of mind to call him on his phone. Six months without sex for Eames was like going without water or oxygen. He was practically crawling in his skin, so when he spotted the pretty little brunette twink at the end of the bar — the one who was practically _batting his fucking eyelashes_ at him — he decided _game on_.

 

Understand, Eames wasn't an ageist. He was a multi-generational lover, but the thing about sweet young things like the one he was speaking to (Aaron? Andrew?) was they were painfully inept conversationalists. No, Eames said. He wasn't on Facebook. Or Twitter. No, he didn't know what Grindr was, but it sounded lovely. He was alarmed to find his mind wondering, even as he rested his hand on Adam's thigh and let his fingers wander north. 

 

_What if Arthur forget to eat his dinner?_

_What if he was researching Olof right now and he departed on a flight tonight?_

_What if Olof hurt him?_

 

It occurred to Eames then that Arthur hadn't technically tossed him out at all. They'd had a fight, but it had ultimately been his decision to walk. To run away. Again. _Fuck_.

 

He probably shouldn't have driven home in his inebriated state, but Eames was never one to make good decisions. He fumbled with his keys, and when he finally, blessedly, got the door open, Arthur was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. Eames paused and sighed deeply. He instantly recognized the point man's body language — no longer in fight mode, but rather slow deterioration. 

 

"Arthur…" he said, feeling his throat close when the Omega looked up and saw his wet, flushed cheeks.

 

He wondered how long Arthur had been sitting there, alone, crying, and felt sick. Eames tossed his keys onto the coffee table and knelt at Arthur's feet, taking his face between his hands so he could wipe away at his tears, like that might also erase his pain.

 

"I'm sorry we had a quarrel," Eames whispered.

 

"I wish I could call Mal," Arthur said softly, seemingly apropos of nothing, but Eames understood what he meant.

 

Mal would have known exactly what to do in this situation. She'd probably string together a series of magical words into a perfect phrase and Arthur would feel better — maybe not completely better, but he'd certainly feel better under Mallorie Cobb's tutelage than he did in the presence of emotionally clumsy, frequently narcissistic Eames.

 

He couldn't have Mal, and he couldn't have Julian because the world is cruel, but he still had Eames.

 

The forger took his hands and kissed them.

 

"I'm a terrible man. I know that. I know…I hurt you when we were young, and Arthur, you don't know how sorry I am for that, pet. I am. Truly."

 

Arthur looked at him like the man was bringing up something he had tried very, very hard to forget. Fresh tears welled up in his eyes, but Eames forced himself to keep speaking because he knew if he didn't say this now, he'd never say it.

 

"But I'm trying. I'm trying to be good. I've mucked up everything in my life and burnt every bridge, but when I'm here with you, I feel like maybe I could be good one day."

 

He felt as though he was rambling, but just then Arthur squeezed his hands and nodded, as though he had somehow made sense of his silly thoughts.

 

"You're helping. You are. I don't know what I would have done without you."

 

Eames felt his heart swell with pride at that and couldn't help the dopy smile that spread across his face. But just as quickly as the moment arrived, Arthur's face hardened, along with his grip on Eames's hands.

 

"I'm sorry I said you're mooching. I know you're not. I know you're helping pay for everything. I'm sorry I said that."

 

Eames smiled slightly, opened his mouth to speak, but Arthur wasn't done.

 

"But…you have to take me with you when you track down Olof."

 

When Eames looked like he was immediately going to object, the point man kept talking.

 

"I mean it. _Listen to me_. He was my husband, Eames. I have the right to be there."

 

Those words took the wind out of his sails a bit. Eames looked at his face, searching his eyes to make sure his point man was still in there —calm, calculating, deadly little Arthur— who always had his back in a gun fight, who never, ever quit until the job was done.

 

Arthur stared back, unflinching. Eames nodded then and he felt the man's grip on his hands slacken slightly.

 

"All right, pet. All right."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Olof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for taking this journey with me, everyone. There will be one more chapter after this — kind of a chapter/epilogue. I wanted to thank everyone for making my first experience publishing a fic so positive and memorable. And thank you for all the feedback!
> 
> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr. I have a million ideas for fics, but I may not post all of them here :)

Arthur seemed to be filled with renewed purpose when Eames included him in shaping the plans to hunt down Olof. He busted out his trusty laptop, set up camp on the living room couch, and instead of spending hours in the bedroom reading, the point man immersed himself in research. In a completely bizarre way, it was…nice. Sort of like the old days when they were on teams together. Eames was under no illusions that things were as they had been before, but it definitely felt as though Arthur had turned a corner.

 

Before, it had been Eames _telling_ Arthur to fight, but now Arthur had taken the reins and seemed interested in his self-preservation again.

 

He'd nearly leapt for joy one afternoon when Arthur —looking particularly interested in whatever he was reading on his computer —turned toward Eames and said:

 

"Did you know Olof is allergic to peanuts?"

 

Eames, reading glasses perched on his nose, looked up from his book, brows raised.

 

"I did not."

 

"We could pose as kitchen staff at a restaurant he frequents, grind up some peanuts on his order, and he'd be dead in minutes," the point man said breezily.

 

"Anyway, just one idea."

 

Eames stared at him for a moment.

 

"Darling, that's delightfully cunning and ruthless."

 

That earned him a little smile from Arthur. He felt giddy at the sight of it.

 

When the final plan began to form, Arthur decided he wanted to adopt a more intimate approach. Namely, he wanted to stare into Olof's eyes, and for the man to know he was there to avenge Julian, as he died. Eames couldn't blame him.

 

Arthur discovered the architect was held up in a tiny village in Russia's vast Krasnoyarsk region — a brutal, remote habitation where they'd almost certainly be immediately recognized as the outsiders they were. They'd have to find a way to the village and attack before anyone spotted them. This was dangerous because it left no time for surveillance or mapping out Olof's day-to-day routine. They'd simply have to hope he was home when they arrived.

 

Eames thought the plan was wildly reckless and he immediately liked it. Arthur seemed less than thrilled, but his desire to torture Olof overwhelmed his fears. The point man was packing a small bag for the trip in his bedroom, clothes laid out neatly upon the bed, as Eames filled him in on the details.

 

"I've a man in Ovsyanka who owes me a favor, so when we land, he'll pick us up and we'll go with him to pick up arms, and then make the trip to Krasnoyarsk," said the forger.

 

"Make sure he has knives. I want a Puma knife, you know the kind I mean?"

 

Arthur looked to Eames for confirmation and the forger nodded. It was a knife used to gut stags —fixed blade, straight edge— slices flesh like butter. Not for the first time, he was reminded of how terrifying Arthur could be sometimes. It was tremendously satisfying to see this side of the point man again when he was fiercely fixated on a single goal, and he willed the world to bend and accommodate his every desire.

 

He wasn't sure how it happened, but when Arthur straightened from leaning over the bed and turned around, Eames found himself crowding up against him. Reflexively, Arthur's hands came up to rest on his chest — maybe planning to shove him away, except he wasn't pushing him and they were just resting there. The forger had no desire to pursue any avenue without Arthur's consent, but he didn't move because he didn't see fear in the man's eyes — only hesitancy, curiosity, and though it was brief, he clearly saw a flash of desire.

 

They'd been living together six, almost seven months, and Eames knew Arthur had always been attracted to him. Mating, getting married, none of that changed the fact that before there was Arthur and Julian, there had been Arthur and Eames. Not for the first time, he found himself thinking, _you belonged to me first._ But he'd been a fool and walked away from Arthur, so now his penance was to not _take_ but to wait — to serve until he was summoned. If he occasionally did this —pushed the boundaries and tested the waters— well, no one could blame him, could they?

 

This half a year had been almost unbearable for him — living in a home where another Alpha's scent permeated every millimetre of the apartment— but he'd withstood it all for Arthur. His fingers moved slowly to the man's hips and gripped the narrow bones there, just so the point man could feel how perfectly they slotted into his hands. _See how well we fit together?_

 

Eames certainly didn't remember all of his sexual conquests, but he remembered how beautifully Arthur had opened for him during the single night they spent together, and he had memorized every inch of him from his sweet dimples, to the hollow of his collarbone where Eames had lapped his tongue and bitten him gently, to his pretty little nipples, his flat stomach, his gorgeous cock, and those legs that he pushed and bent and wrapped around his waist.

 

He remembered it all, and when he looked into Arthur's eyes, he knew the other man remembered as well.

 

"You don't have to be alone, you know," Eames murmured, not knowing what to do next, feeling like a rowboat cast out to sea during a hurricane.

 

He knew Arthur had been lonely, laying in bed night after night, wrapped macabrely in Julian's old hoodie, which in Eames's opinion was a bloody waste. He'd been sleeping down the hall from him for such a long time, and if Arthur simply gave him a chance — just left his bedroom door open one night — he'd fall over himself to make him feel so good, if only for a little while. Arthur was too young to play the part of grieving widower the rest of his life. 

 

Of course, they'd always disagreed on matters of decency. Six months was a long, long time for Eames, but for Arthur, the past half of a year had passed in a blur. He seemed to think any moment's joy was a desecration of Julian's memory, and so he pushed Eames backwards, although gently — like a tiny piece of him might regret doing so.

 

"Don't," he pleaded gently, sounding like he was asking for mercy.

 

Eames, who had never settled for anything less than passionate reciprocation, stepped back immediately and offered Arthur his most disarming smile.

 

"Can't blame a bloke for trying, hm?"

 

Arthur smiled softly at that and he was instantly filled with relief. No harm done, then. He'd been getting the distinct impression that the Omega might even find a little pleasure in the attention — knowing an Alpha desired him. It was built into his genetic makeup to want to please Alphas, but his mind must have been confused — feeling the warmth of Eames and smelling his scent, but also being surrounded by memories of Julian.

 

If they were ever going to form a union, it would be outside of this space —this tomb— but when they did meet, they were going to crash together like a bloody force of nature.

 

"We're leaving tomorrow at oh five hundred hours," Arthur replied calmly, in control of his faculties once more as he zipped his bag closed and pretended as though Eames hadn't just tried to bed him.

 

Eames rubbed his jaw where a full beard had grown since he'd started living with Arthur and skipped shaving so as to not cause a mess in the bathroom.

 

"Aye aye, Captain," he chirped, throwing up a mock salute that had Arthur rolling his eyes like it was the old days.

 

***

 

Eames had twelve hours to obsess over every detail of their plan during the flight from New York to Moscow. They then boarded a terrifyingly small plane that flew them to Ovsyanka and rocked and jerked at every gust of wind, a ghastly white-knuckle ordeal that had Eames gripping his seat and breathing slowly in…and out. Arthur smirked at him, completely devoid of humanity.

 

"Weren't you a pilot?"

 

"It's different when I'm _flying_ the plane, Arthur," he growled.

 

When they reached the airport, his contact was waiting for them outside the building, standing beside a positively ancient-looking vehicle. Arthur looked disgusted on multiple levels.

 

"You two look like shit," Viktor greeted.

 

"Speaking of things that look like shit," Arthur countered, nodding to the car.

 

Eames grinned as Viktor scowled at the shorter man.

 

"Who the fuck is this, Eames?"

 

"He's the lad who'll have your balls in a mason jar if you don't open this fucking car. C'mon. It's freezing."

 

They were both dressed in thermal coats, gloves, scarves, and hats that were still no match for Russia's brutal climate. Eames could already feel his beard freezing around his mouth.

 

Soon they were driving across the icy roads toward Viktor's shack, which was located in what could only be generously described as the middle of nowhere. Arthur and Eames sat together in the backseat, having reached a silent consensus that neither of them trusted Viktor enough to ride shotgun. After all, it was easier to stab someone in the neck if you were seated behind them.

 

Of course, the heat in his car wasn't working, so Eames was curled up miserably, rubbing his gloved hands together in a meager attempt to warm them. Arthur, the lunatic, looked unfazed because he was a depraved degenerate who enjoyed cold climates. Probably because he got to wear more of his precious designer layers.

 

The only tell that he was even a little uncomfortable was the tip of his nose and ears had turned an adorable shade of pink, the sight of which made Eames feel a strange tightening in his chest.

 

"How much further?" he barked, annoyed and a little aroused.

 

"Close," Viktor spat back, clearly uninterested in making conversation with the two idiots who made him leave his home and loiter at the airport.

 

"Bloody vague," Eames grumbled, extending and flexing his fingers, hoping that might get his circulatory system flowing again.

 

Arthur looked amused as he watched, but then he turned his attention back to Viktor.

 

"Did you get my Puma knife?" he asked, addressing the rearview mirror where the Russian's gaze met his briefly.

 

"Da…yes," Viktor replied succinctly.

 

The point man looked pleased the rest of the journey.

 

***

Eames was never, ever going to complain about living with Arthur again — not after having seen where Viktor had squatted for God knows how long. It was barely a shack, heated by nothing more than an electric heater that scarcely warmed the area immediately surrounding it. The entire place was one room that included a mattress on the floor, a sink, and a black and white television that rested on the floor. When Viktor informed them that there was an outhouse in the back, Eames had to stifle the impulse to punch him in the throat.

 

"I miss your Egyptian cotton sheets," he pined wistfully as they examined the stockpile Viktor had acquired for him,

 

Arthur grinned as he looked through Viktor's acquisition. Given that he was living among the snow people, he'd managed to secure them a decent haul: two Glock G17s, a .44 Magnum, and more surprisingly of all, an AK-74. Eames held up the assault rifle looking stunned.

 

"Where the hell did you get this thing?"

 

"Market," Viktor said, like they were chatting about eggs.

 

Viktor nodded at Arthur.

 

"He know how to shoot?"

 

Eames had to fight the urge to start laughing hysterically, while Arthur, for his part, looked completely unsurprised. He supposed the point man was accustomed to people underestimating him. That's what happen when you're born with an eternal baby face.

 

"Oh yeah," Eames said, winking at Arthur, who smirked in return.

 

It was nice, at least for a little while, seeing Arthur in his old role as point man as he took inventory of their weaponry and carefully counted their clips and piled them into two duffle bags. They had enough ammo to take down an elephant.

 

Arthur looked a little too excited when he found the Puma knife in the stockpile, as promised by Viktor. He unsheathed it to check the blade, smiled his little ruthless smile, re-sheathed it and stuffed it in the bag.

 

"Not mucking about, are you, darling?" he asked, kneeling beside him, fingers wrapped around the AK-74.

 

Arthur finished loading the clips into the one bag and zipped it shut. He reached across and took the rifle from the forger and laid it in the second bag with the rest of the guns and closed that as well.

 

"Listen, when we get there, I want you to leave me alone with Olof," Arthur said calmly.

 

"Absolutely not," he responded without hesitation.

 

Arthur took a deep breath like he'd been expecting that reaction and he needed to meditate through the forger's lapse in judgment. As the point man stared across the room, obviously trying to sort out what he should say next to help the Alpha understand his point of view, Eames took in the sight of him. Since Julian's death, he'd stopped cutting his hair just as Eames had stopped shaving, so his dark locks curled slightly at his ears, making him look even younger. There was no bloody way he was leaving Arthur alone with Olof.

 

"Do you trust me still?" Arthur asked, looking unsure for the first time since they'd begun planning the mission.

 

"Of course," Eames answered, again not having to pause to think.

 

"Then let me be alone with him."

 

Eames remained crouched beside Arthur, though he slumped backward against the wall and sighed as he rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. _Tricky bloody Arthur_. Now he was in a position where —if he didn't allow the point man to finish off Olof on his own— he was demonstrating a lack of trust in his teammate, which was terrible for overall moral. When you were in the field as they were, you needed to know with absolute certainty the man beside you was equipped to do their part.

 

"I trust you completely," he finally responded, knowing Arthur would understand that was acquiescence. 

 

***

 

Viktor apparently thought picking up Eames from the airport, providing him with guns, and then allowing the pair to sleep in his home was enough repayment for the forger having saved him from a gang of Bolivian drug dealers in the late 90s because he refused to drive them the entire way to Krasnoyarsk. Bundled in their puffy jackets, duffle bags strung across their chests, Arthur and Eames trudged heavily along the road, up to their mid-shins in snow.

 

They'd both brought ski masks to shield their faces from the brutally frigid wind, but Eames couldn't bloody breathe or see with the thing on, so he yanked it up onto his forehead. Arthur followed suit a minute later.

 

They toiled in silence until the forger noticed the younger man glancing his way occasionally. Arthur did that sometimes. When Eames had called him out on it one time, the point man responded:

 

"You have such an odd face. You never look the same way twice."

 

Eames had heard that before, of course. It was one of the perks of being a chameleon. Sometimes he looked very young and slight, while other times he looked his true age and built like a brick shithouse, and still other times he looked older and puffy and he felt a thousand years old. But when Arthur said it, he chose to interpret it as a compliment.

 

"May I help you?" he asked because he'd been raised in a British household where people were polite even if they were dying slowly from hypothermia.

 

"You really aren't built for cold climates, are you?" Arthur asked, grinning cheekily.

 

It was nice to see him do anything besides lay about the apartment in a shroud of grief. Eames assumed it was the heightened sense of purpose — having such a clear goal in his mind had helped Arthur break through his depression. He wondered what would happen once Olof was dead.

 

"When this is over, what're you going to do?" Eames asked.

 

Arthur adjusted the bag's strap on his chest and shrugged his shoulders, though the gesture was somewhat lost underneath the generous padding of his coat.

 

"Maybe go back to work. Otherwise, I'll be laying around, feeling sorry for myself."

 

"I thought you wanted to retire."

 

"Well, that was before."

 

Eames heard the tightening in his voice and could practically feel Arthur's walls going up again. That wouldn't do at all.

 

"You know, darling. You should really give me a chance as a mate. I'm clean, I can cook, and I've been told I'm an excellent lover," he said, grinning shamelessly.

 

"Are you seriously flirting with me right now?" Arthur asked, but he was smiling.

 

"I would flirt with you if I'd just had a double amputation, my sweet."

 

"That's so twisted," Arthur said, laughing.

 

***

Their cavalier attitude vanished as they drew closer to Olof's home. Eames had no idea how Arthur had tracked down the Russian's shack because certainly none of this remote area was on a GPS map, but he knew with absolute certainty as they crouched in the woods and observed the building from their position that Olof would be inside.

 

"You kick in the back door and I'll proceed into the building with you covering me. When we locate the target, we'll secure him, and then you guard the outside perimeter," Arthur said, squinting as he eyed the house, probably looking for Olof through the window.

 

That was a very Arthurian way to say _we'll strap him to a chair, and then you'll fuck off while I torture him to death_.

 

Eames nodded as he unzipped his bag and pulled out a rifle so he could load it. Arthur did the same with two handguns. When they were armed, they slipped on the bags again, stood, and proceeded down the small slope toward Olof's backdoor as quietly as possible. Wearing thirty pounds of gear and trudging through knee-deep snow drifts made it difficult not to pant for air heavily and alert the Russian to their approach, but Eames focused on breathing calmly through his nose.

 

When they reached the back door, the pair crouched again momentarily so they wouldn't be visible through the window. Arthur caught the forger's gaze and held up three fingers, then two. Then one.

 

Eames stood at the door, lifted his leg, and kicked it down in one go. He raised the rifle to his shoulder quickly as Arthur flew past him into the building and immediately started clearing the corners, making sure Olof wasn't hidden anywhere, waiting to attack. Turns out, the idiot was sprawled on his bed, examining a Playboy magazine, probably warming up for a wank before an afternoon nap. It was so absurd, Eames nearly laughed.

 

"Sloppy, Olof. Very sloppy. You didn't even have the perimeter wired with explosives. Weren't you KGB?" he asked, grinning broadly.

 

"Fuck you," Olof spat, literally, his mouth bleeding from where Arthur had buried the hilt of Eames's rifle. He was probably missing a couple teeth from that.

 

Arthur was kneeling behind him, tying his hands and ankles with zip ties and securing them to the chair. Unlike Eames, the point man didn't appear to be in a playful mood. In fact, his face looked rather grim, probably focused on the task ahead. 

 

Eames and the Russian watched mutely as Arthur knelt by his duffle bag and unzipped a side pocket, pulling out a black case. When he opened it, an array of tools gleamed in the afternoon light — various medieval-like apparatuses that looked like they were built for screwing and yanking purposes. He saved the Puma knife for last, unsheathed the cruel blade and laid it exactly where he knew the Russian could see it.

 

Olof's eyes immediately flitted to Eames.

 

"Don't let him. I'll pay you. I can pay you whatever you want," the Russian bargained desperately.

 

Arthur ignored Olof and calmly took off his gloves so he could start organizing the tools to his liking. Eames wished he felt more jovial as he looked at Olof and shook his head slowly. But desperate men cannot be dissuaded so easily.

 

"Anything, Eames! You could disappear, buy a fucking island!"

 

The conversation was pointless and all three of them knew that. Hell, all of dreamshare would probably reach the same consensus that there was no way — under any circumstances — that Eames would sell out Arthur. That was really saying something considering Eames didn't have scruples beyond that one basic truth.

 

Once the point man had his tools neatly laid out before him, he stood and nodded at Eames.

 

"I'm ready. You can leave now."

 

The forger obeyed, Olof screaming for mercy at his back as he left and walked away from the house, returning to their lookout spot by the forest's edge.

 

His hands were only shaking a little when he pulled his cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit one between his lips. He knew Arthur had requested he leave him alone with Olof for a few reasons, first and foremost being that he wanted the man's death to be an intimate moment between him and Julian's murderer. But he also knew that the point man didn't want Eames to see him in that frenzied bloodlust state. The forger could respect that wish. He'd only lost control completely a few times — once beat a man to death with his bare fists — but he certainly wouldn't have wanted Arthur, who looked at him so fondly sometimes with such trust and respect, to have witnessed it. 

 

There was also the fact that Eames had been tortured himself while he was held in Egypt, and while he'd never been formally diagnosed with PTSD, he knew the ordeal had permanently scrambled his brain when it came to some things. Arthur didn't want to trigger him by witnessing Olof's demise — hearing his cries sail through the open door was bad enough. The man's wet, gurgling screams carried through the walls and Eames sucked down half a pack of cigarettes before he felt like he could pull himself together.

 

Olof could shout all he liked. His nearest neighbor lived ten miles away.

 

It went on for _hours_ , and Eames finally set his bag on the snow and sat atop it, waiting for Arthur to finish. After a while, there weren't anymore screams, and still Arthur remained inside, which meant Olof was alive but had gone quiet. Eames tried not to think about what that meant.

 

Finally, as the sun began to set on the horizon, Arthur emerged from the house, the bag slung across his back. Eames had expected him to return covered from head to toe in blood, but the point man looked fairly normal, save for the gleam of sweat across his brow and the slight flush of his cheeks. He must have washed up in Olof's sink before leaving.

 

"It's done," he said simply.

 

Smoke was already billowing from the shack's window and it took Eames a couple seconds to realize the house was burning.

 

They repacked their guns and made for the meet-up spot where Viktor picked them up and they drove in silence back to the man's home. Eames desperately wanted to ask Arthur a million questions about what had happened with Olof, but it didn't seem right to ask him such personal things in front of the other man. But it also didn't seem like the right time at the airport the next day, and in fact the pair communicated relatively monosyllabically for the next twenty hours, or so, until they were in a taxi returning from JFK airport.

 

"So…" Eames began, in French, wagering their Bronx-born cab driver didn't speak the language.

 

"What happened in there?" he asked.

 

"I took care of it," Arthur responded, typically vague even though they'd taken the precaution of not speaking English.

 

"Did he say anything to you?" Eames asked.

 

Arthur hesitated then, gazing down at his hands as if remembering how they'd been coated with blood very recently.

 

"He said it was nothing personal. That he'd done it for the money."

 

It was absurd, of course. Eames couldn't imagine anything _more_ personal than killing someone's mate, but the scoundrel inside understood at least in part what Olof had meant. People didn't make friends in dreamshare. They were a den of crooks and liars who formed temporary unions to pull off jobs and get paid, but their emotional attachments weren't supposed to extend beyond that.

 

"No honor among thieves, huh?" Arthur asks, his voice wavering a little

 

"Oi," Eames said, affronted. 

 

Arthur turns to him and smiled softly, the first real break in his icy facade since he'd finished off Olof.

 

"You're not just a thief," he said quietly, reaching over to squeeze the forger's hand.

 

Eames gazed down at their hands, turned his wrist, and caught Arthur's fingers between his own. The point man didn't move when Eames lifted his hand and kissed his palm, breathing in the Omega's sweet scent underneath the coppery smell of blood, which he could still detect despite Arthur having vigorously scrubbed his skin.

 

"I am, darling. I steal all sorts of things that aren't mine."

 

Arthur looked thoughtful when the forger eventually glanced at his face. When Eames released him, Arthur returned his hands to his lap.

 

"Where are you going now?" the Omega asked, aiming for casual and doing a lousy job of it.

 

It was a good question. Arthur had clearly turned a corner and probably didn't need constant monitoring anymore. He would return to dreamshare, travel to exotic locations, and pick up where he left off before he was married — before he'd ever met Julian. He had to do that because the only other option was to do nothing, and the monotony of ordinary life would certainly crush a man like Arthur.

 

And Eames…he'd probably do the same — return to life as it had been before, complete with the drunken stupors, one night stands, and burning his commission as soon as it filled his pockets. Oddly enough, the prospect didn't seem as tantalizing as it once had.

 

"I think…I'm going to buy a new apartment," Arthur said finally.

 

That actually surprised Eames. It was one suggestion he'd never dared to make as part of Arthur's recovery, thinking the point man would instantly shoot down the idea. It made sense, though. Julian's scent and memory were in every crevice of the place, making it impossible for the point man to ever move on and heal.

 

"…and I was thinking that I'd like you to live with me," he continued, again managing to surprise Eames.

 

He must have looked stupidly hopefully, like an abandoned puppy eager to please because Arthur immediately clarified.

 

"I'm not…promising anything, and if you want things to move quickly, I can't do that, Eames."

 

"Of course. Wouldn't dream of it."

 

"I mean it. No _accidentally_ walking into the bathroom when I'm coming out of the shower, or anything…"

 

"I did that _one_ time and you're never going to let me hear the end of it."

 

Arthur smiled then and Eames couldn't stop himself from sliding over toward the Omega and slipping a hand behind his head. He met Arthur half way, bringing him forth gently as he leaned down to kiss him. For Eames, it was a chaste little gesture — innocent almost — though he did dip his tongue into Arthur's mouth to taste him, and the point man didn't seem to mind judging by the soft moan he drew from him. He could feel Arthur's hands mapping the plains of his chest and arms and then his back, which inspired Eames to slide forward, push him against the door, and deepen the embrace.

 

At some point, they must have pulled up in front of Arthur's apartment because the driver suddenly cleared his throat.

 

Eames pulled back and blinked, in a total daze, and Arthur didn't look much better off — his lips puffy and red, his cheeks flushed a lovely shade of pink. 

 

"Um…" the Omega began and his voice sounded rough.

 

"Right, thanks mate," Eames said, handing the driver what was certainly too much money.

 

When they were back inside the apartment, Eames dropped his go-bag by the door, kicked off his shoes, and trudged over to the couch before throwing himself upon it dramatically. Arthur laughed at him as he shed his coat.

 

"Glad to be back?"

 

"Glad it's bloody over," Eames corrected, squinting at the point man thoughtfully.

 

"How are you?"

 

Arthur sighed and held up his hands in a bit of a helpless expression.

 

"I thought it'd make me feel better, but it didn't."

 

Eames felt his stomach sink at that confession. Killing Olof hadn't made anything better. He thought back to Arthur curled upon the bed for days at a time, and wondered if he would regress back to how it had been before he had begun to make all of his progress. It was because of those dark thoughts that he missed the point man approaching the couch, and he had a bit of a delayed reaction when the younger man slid onto his lap, though his arms automatically moved to wrap protectively around his waist. Only bloody Arthur would wear an expensive dress shirt and vest on an assassination mission, he thought fondly, as his fingers grazed over the fine fabric.

 

"You make me feel better, though," Arthur whispered, kissing Eames on his temple.

 

"That's all I want," Eames responded, surprised when he realized his words were true.

 

For once in his life, he'd made someone else a priority. Eames hadn't hesitated to take half a year off from work, devoting himself to Arthur's every waking beck and call. He could never make up for abandoning Arthur in their youth, but he could promise to be slavishly loyal in their latter years. Words — especially a thief's words — were cheap, though. He would have to demonstrate such notions.

 

"I'm on your time, love," he added, leaning his head back so he could look at Arthur.

 

"However long it takes."

 

Arthur gripped his collar and smiled before leaning down to press their lips together.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The impossible is possible.

_5 years later_

 

Eames was lazing about in bed, the sheets ruffled around him, clad in nothing except his boxer briefs. A cup of tea rested beside him on a table and he held the newspaper in his hands, occasionally turning another page. Afternoon sunlight poor through the bedroom's white, translucent drapes and bathed the bed with its warm rays. The giant bay windows were one of the main reasons he'd bought the apartment, along with the stunning view of the 8th arrondissement. 

 

Arthur wandered back into the room, pajama bottoms clinging to his slender hips, his hair pointing in every direction as he yawned obscenely. He held a small bundle in his arms that squirmed stubbornly along with a half-full bottle.

 

"He doesn't want to nurse," he sighed.

 

"Come here. Give him to me," Eames said, setting aside his newspaper.

 

The forger eagerly held out his hands and grinned when Arthur lowered his son into his arms. _Jack_. It was a fine name, Eames thought for the hundredth time — a proper lad's name. _Jack Eames_. 

 

"Miss your daddy's tits, do you?" he asked, laughing when Arthur smacked the back of his head — lightly. He was holding the baby, after all.

 

Life had been grand for the sprog the first couple weeks after his birth because Arthur still had lovely little breasts that he could feed from, but the Omega was too slight for that to go on indefinitely, and he couldn't force himself to eat enough calories throughout the day to compensate for producing that much milk. As a result, his chest was flat again — the small swells having vanished virtually overnight — and the poor baby was reduced to formula.

 

Jack was not happy about the arrangement.

 

"Let's try this," he said, holding out his hand for the bottle. 

 

Arthur handed it over immediately, probably grateful for a break, and climbed into bed beside his mate. Stretching out on his back, his fingertips wandered across his stomach, smoothing over his Cesarean section scar. Over time, it would fade and turn white, but never entirely disappear. The Omega thought he was so odd any time Eames worshipfully kissed across the area, but of course he loved it. That's where his baby came from.

 

Gently, Eames pressed the nipple against Jack's lips, and the baby immediately started to fuss.

 

"Shhh, I know," he soothed, using his softest tone. "I prefer the real thing myself."

 

"That's disgusting, you know. You're talking to your son," Arthur pointed out, though he was smirking and Eames could tell he secretly liked the compliment.

 

"There's a good boy," Eames encouraged when the baby finally opened his mouth and started suckling.

 

Arthur looked annoyed at that.

 

"Unbelievable. I was trying to get him to do that for fifteen minutes," he scowled.

 

"Well, he wanted his baba, didn't you?"

 

Jack kicked his feet a bit and went to town on the bottle.

 

***

 

Arthur hadn't thought it was possible for him to have children — not after his first miscarriage — but Eames had always had more faith in impossible-seeming things. For a while, it seemed as though maybe Arthur had been right. They moved to a new apartment in California by the Cobbs, and Arthur wasted a fortune on home pregnancy tests — stick after stick angrily discarded in the trash before the point man stalked from the bathroom, cursing Eames name, saying _I told you. It's not fucking working._

 

Eames was always able to calm him — to take him gently by the arms and kiss face until he could feel his Omega melting beneath the light of his attention. However, a terrible note of doubt had wormed its way into his heart. Maybe Arthur had been right.

 

He decided at once that it wouldn't matter. Children or not, he would follow Arthur to the ends of the earth, but he could see in his love's face sadness spreading like storm clouds. To Arthur, not having children would always be a failure for him. He was an Omega, and also a point man – both breeds saw anything less than goal achievement as an unforgivable sin.

 

Being around Cobb's children used to fill the void, but now it seemed to serve as a reminder to Arthur of what he didn't, and might never, have. Eames could see him withdrawing, growing thin, spending more time in the bedroom and in bed.

 

Eames nipped things in the bud right away, stealing Arthur away to Paris where they spent a wonderful week — mostly indoors, actually — making love passionately and bringing Arthur back to life. Having decided the city was good for Arthur, the forger went out and bought a ridiculously expensive apartment and surprised his mate with it one evening, leading him up the stairs at a glacial pace with his hands sealed over his eyes. He'd fully been braced for Arthur, who abhorred sudden change and spontaneity, to shout and hit him for making such a lavish purchase on his own. Instead, when he removed his hand and allowed Arthur to see their new home, the Omega began to cry and immediately grabbed him, kissing him and saying _How did you know? How did you know I always wanted to live in Paris?_

 

Apparently, the change did Arthur good. After only a few weeks, he put on a little weight, looked less pale and gaunt, and seemed generally happier.

 

"It's all the butter. It's on _everything_ ," he'd say, but Eames new better.

 

Paris relaxed Arthur.

 

He loved the beautiful architecture and expensive fashion stores — the museums and the monuments — the croissants and the rich wine. 

 

But he also loved Paris because it was a new beginning for them.

 

The point man hadn't forgotten Julian — he never would — and he still kept those five possessions locked away in a bureau drawer. Eames was aware other Alphas wouldn't allow it, but he knew Julian had been an important part of both their lives. For Arthur, Julian had been his partner and lover, but Julian had also taught Eames how to be a better man for Arthur. Had the other forger not died, Eames wouldn't have become the Omega's caretaker and guardian, learning to be selfless and care for someone else's interests above his own.

 

If Arthur wanted to keep small tokens to cherish Julian's memory, Eames would not deny him that right.

 

One warm afternoon, after they'd thrown the bedroom balcony windows open to let in the summer breeze, they fell into bed together, and Arthur felt so warm and receptive beneath his hands that Eames was instantly filled with the knowledge that this would be the evening Arthur conceived. Perhaps it was one of those unexplainable senses Alphas possess, but for whatever reason, he simply knew this would happen just as he'd known inception would work.

 

Arthur was so wet by the time Eames wrapped his legs around his waist that when he reached down, he was able to sink two fingers into his heat. The Omega gasped out then, thrashing a bit on the bed as he gripped the headboard and tried to thrust against his hand.

 

"Yes, love. So good for me," he whispered, pulling his fingers out and descending Arthur's frame before the other man could object.

 

Eames buried his face between his Omega's thighs, hungrily lapping at his hole so he could taste him before pushing his tongue inside, delighting in Arthur's cry and the feel of the man's fingers gripping his hair. He'd long since shaven off his beard, but he had a few days worth of stubble on his chin and neck, which he used to scrape Arthur's soft skin. Flicking his tongue in and out, Eames reached up to slowly stroke Arthur's cock. The goal was to get him nice and relaxed. Eames had a working theory that the reason he hadn't conceived yet is he was too bloody stressed from work and then the added pressure of thinking he couldn't have children. 

 

He realized eventually that Arthur was tugging insistently at his hair, trying to coax him upward. He squirmed beneath the Alpha, leaning up to lick at his nipple, making Eames gasp in surprise. He gently wrapped his fingers around Arthur's elegant throat and pushed him against the mattress, holding him there and squeezing carefully, knowing the Omega liked when he demonstrated his strength. Arthur — lovely, beautiful Arthur — obediently stretched out beneath Eames, his chest rising and falling rapidly and his pupils completely blown. His frame was trembling, his scent flooded the room, and Eames could feel it in his bones that Arthur was ready for him.

 

"You want it?" he growled, still gripping Arthur as he bent down and pressed his nose and lips to his cheek.

 

"Yes," Arthur whined, all pretense of pride gone.

 

"You want _what_?" Eames goaded, tightening his grip ever-so-slightly so he could feel Arthur swallow.

 

"Your cock," he gasped, writhing again.

 

Eames released his throat and gripped him by the thighs, dragging Arthur downward and then grabbing a leg to sling over his shoulder. He could see the Omega's hole, pink, clenched, and gleaming before he stuck the fat head of his cock against it and pushed inside. He entered in a single, firm thrust, surprising Arthur a little, who shouted and slammed his hands to the duvet, clenching the fabric in his fists.

 

"Oh, _fuck_!" the Omega whimpered, instantly moving to grip his length, squeezing it at the base tightly so he wouldn't come too soon.

 

When he was under control again, Arthur reached for the headboard and seized it, trying to grind down upon Eames, who watched a moment in breathless wonder.

 

"God, yes, fuck yourself on my cock," he groaned encouragingly.

 

Arthur seemed to like it because he gripped the headboard and began thrusting down with little jerks of his hips, bouncing enthusiastically on Eames and moaning uncontrollably. The forger had always loved how uncharacteristically vocal Arthur got during sex because he knew he was literally fucking the noises right out of him. Arthur would never act so uncouth if he could otherwise prevent it, but with Eames's dick buried inside him, he was helpless — a slave to his biological desires.

 

"Look at you. Bloody gorgeous," he rasped, bringing his hand down to smack the side of Arthur's ass cheek.

 

He was rewarded with a loud gasp and moan. Eames grabbed both of the Omega's legs then and wrapped them high across his upper back, bending Arthur practically in half. 

 

"Fuck me hard," Arthur choked, his brow shining with sweat, his cheeks flushed with color.

 

Eames obliged, propped up on the balls of his feet as he pounded Arthur into the mattress, arms caging him and forcing the Omega to practically roll up onto his shoulders. Arthur clenched his eyes shut and bared his teeth, a loud, sustained yowl pouring from his throat. It had to hurt a little, but Eames could also see his cock steadily leaking onto his stomach and chest.

 

The Alpha gripped his legs and pushed them further still until the bottom of his feet were resting against the headboard. When he leaned forward, he could see Arthur's lovely face, twisted in a mask of pleasure.

 

"Oh fuck, fuck, oh fuck, _fuck_ me," he babbled incoherently, a mess of sweaty limbs and blushing flesh.

 

Eames had a bit of a habit of turning into a chav in bed. His accent would go muddy, reverting back to his childhood when he spent his time with the worst kinds of gutter trash. Admittedly, life had not changed dramatically for him in much of his adulthood. Arthur seemed to like it, though — just as the Omega worshipped his crooked teeth and litany of terrible tattoos. There had always been a bit of chav in Arthur, as well.

 

" _Take_ it," Eames growled and Arthur moaned like a whore in response, the sound causing the Alpha's balls to instantly tighten.

 

Arthur's scent was thicker suddenly, making Eames feel light-headed. He felt high as he moved atop him, his head swimming and body aflame, but possessed with endless vigor. Though he was pushing middle age, when he fucked Arthur, the forger felt like a young stud again, drunk on the smell of the Omega.

 

"Eames…" Arthur wailed, coming hard, his inner muscles clamping down unforgivably on his cock.

 

"Fuuuck," Eames groaned loudly, collapsing atop him, already expanding rapidly and filling Arthur.

 

"Oh fuck," the forger moaned in disbelief again — slightly in awe of his own orgasm.

 

When he started to come, Arthur turned his face into the bed and moaned helplessly, putting on a bit of a performance for Eames to show how much he liked being claimed by the Alpha. The forger nuzzled the side of his neck, biting and licking to coax more moans from him.

 

"Good?" he asked, rocking his hips experimentally.

 

"Ah, fuck, yes, don't move. You'll make me hard again," the point man beseeched. 

 

"S'fine. I'll make you come again if I want," Eames whispered, kissing him soundly.

 

He did. In fact, he made Arthur come twice more before they both passed out, tangled and filthy.

 

***

 

Eames looked so smug when the next pregnancy test came back positive that Arthur was a little angry at him.

 

"Don't get your hopes up," the Omega muttered quietly, tossing the stick into a bin.

 

He wrapped his arms around Arthur's waist from behind and tenderly kissed his neck.

 

"No matter what happens, I love you, pet," he whispered behind his ear.

 

He could tell Arthur was smiling from the way his body relaxed against him.

 

"I love you," he echoed, reaching back to cup the side of his face.

 

***

 

This time, the pregnancy stuck. Arthur seemed to be expecting an anvil to land on him, or something, but eventually he appeared to accept that he was going to give birth to a baby, and that maybe — just maybe — everything would be fine. Eames supposed a lifetime chasing Dom around had prepared the point man to always expect the worse.

 

"We're going to be happy, Arthur," he said one day, having cornered him out on their balcony.

 

"I know," the point man responded, looking at Eames like he was crazy.

 

"No, I mean…" Eames held his face and forced the man to look at him.

 

"We're going to be really happy, pet."

 

Arthur smiled genuinely then — dimples and all — and they kissed outside in the Paris air.

 

***

Jack was born eight months later — a little premature, which scared the shit out of Eames until the point man explained on their way to the hospital — in between contractions — that he'd been a premie too.

 

"He'll be okay," Arthur promised, cradling his swollen stomach with one hand and squeezing the Alpha's arm with the other as Eames navigated the car.

 

And he was. He was beautiful and perfect, actually, and Eames drove the nurses mad showing him off until Arthur called for him to come back into the room and leave everyone alone.

 

Jack had lovely dark hair like Arthur and the forger's mouth and eyes, and Eames couldn't wait to see if he had dimples. He prayed he would.

 

"Do you think he's an Alpha?" Arthur asked, looking wrecked as he laid in the hospital bed.

 

"I don't care," Eames answered honestly. 

 

Jack could have been anything and Eames was going to love him with his entire heart forever.

 

***

This was their little family now: Eames, Jack, and Arthur _Eames_ , thank you very much. The point man made the decision himself to change his name when he became pregnant. Eames tried not to glow too obviously from pleasure when he announced the decision.

 

"Oh, wipe that look off your face," he laughed.

 

"What look? I'm just happy this will simplify our insurance policy," Eames lied and might have fluttered his lashes.

 

Eames couldn't stop looking at and holding the baby, which sometimes aggravated Arthur, namely when he was trying to do things like bathe the baby, or change his diaper, or feed him. When Dom came to visit them, the point man forced him to take Eames out on the town just to get him out of the apartment for a few hours. The forger spent the entire time showing Dom baby pictures on his phone, the extractor's forehead wrinkled as he kept glancing to Eames, vaguely concerned.

 

He'd already decided he was going to be the greatest father in the world — the polar opposite of his old man — a constant force of love and support. Let Arthur be the strict one. Eames was going to shower his boy with toys and whatever else his tiny heart desired.

 

"He's going to be a monster because of you, you understand that, don't you?" Arthur asked one time when Eames came home with a giant stuffed giraffe.

 

"He'll be _king_ of the monsters," Eames responded, being deliberately thick.

 

Maybe he went a little batty after the baby was born, but he couldn't really be blamed. Jack was a tiny version of Arthur, both of them precious and priceless — lives Eames would guard ruthlessly. 

 

He came home from the market one afternoon to find Arthur seated by the window, Jack cradled in his arms, asleep. The Omega looked up when Eames walked in and smiled softly, nodding him over to look at the baby. He approached silently and gazed down at his son's face, then the glowing visage of his mate.

 

When he bent down, he kissed the top of Arthur's head and took a selfish moment to close his eyes and breathe in his scent.

 

Eames never thought he could be a good man — an excellent forger, an extraordinary thief, yes, but never a good man. The path to this moment had been winding, odd, and tragic, but he couldn't bring himself to regret a moment of it — not when Arthur smiled at him and his son opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: http://theaoidos.tumblr.com/


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